Satisfied in Christ

I’ve been reflecting lately on our experience of our salvation in Christ. Recently I’ve been meditating on John 6:35, where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Jesus uses the physical experience of hunger and thirst and its satisfaction with food and drink as a metaphor for what he offers us through faith. Two important questions arise in relation to this metaphor: 

First, what does Jesus mean? What is the thing that he is pointing to by using this metaphor? He clearly is not referring to literal hunger and thirst. He is not saying that if we believe in him we won’t have to go grocery shopping again. (This is the misunderstanding of both the original hearers in John 6 and the woman at the well in John 4.) It must refer to spiritual realities. 

It also seems like it must refer to something that is experiential (we almost might call this “existential”). The sheer physicality of the metaphor seems to require something more than simply the cognitive satisfaction that comes from grasping an idea. Since we were made to know God, it stands to reason that Jesus refers to an existential and personal knowledge of God that is ours in salvation. This is what he offers to those who follow him. As I reflect on my own experience, I think this must be the kind of thing that we obtain access to at conversion, but must be appropriated day by day by seeking him and growing in our faith and godliness. 

Raising the point about our need for a day by day experience of this “fullness” or “satisfaction” in God brings up the second question: how does the reality relate to the metaphor? In other words, what is the relationship between the physical realities and the spiritual realities? One of our troubles in experiencing this satisfaction in God to the degree that we would like is the way that other “hungers and thirsts” come into play. 

1. Our hungering and thirsting for God often take place alongside our daily hungering and thirsting for things we need (e.g., food and water). This could be broadened out to include all the natural desires and drives that are perfectly legitimate: the desire for food and drink, the desire for human companionship, the desire to do something of significance with one’s life (i.e., meaningful work), the desire to experience beauty and enjoyment, the desire to be free from pain. These are desires that are good and can (and often should) be sought after. 
2. However, these desires can swallow up our desire for God and satisfaction in him. They can be inordinate in that we try to satisfy the desires that only God can ultimately satisfy with desires that are never meant to satisfy that way. This shows us there is an ordering of desires: ultimate desires are to be satisfied by God alone; subordinate desires are meant for things of this world and should be satisfied in a manner that subordinates them to God both in terms of proper order and degree. This also explains why people who have full bellies and bank accounts have a hard time seeing their need for Christ. It is hard to feel our ultimate need when all our proximate needs are met. We feel such satisfaction in the things of this world that our lack of ultimate satisfaction can’t be felt. 
3. On the other hand, we often find ourselves frustrated in our pursuit of earthly desires, and if we seek God and find ourselves ultimately satisfied in him, we can find comfort. While this does not mean that loss and frustrated desires stop causing pain, it does mean that there can be ultimate peace in the midst of suffering. Because of Christ it becomes a possibility, but the actual experience of it is something that must be fought for day by day. Even when we suffer greatly and can’t feel that comfort, mature Christians know which direction to push through to find it. Though we’re often blinded by pain, those who know the way to the living water have an intuitive sense of the direction. What true children of God know is that no other earthly pleasure will satisfy when we need the comfort that only God gives. Maybe we see in Job someone who is fighting for it but hasn’t attained it yet. We see in Paul someone who has attained it.