Satisfied - Part 1

The Gift of a Song

I have a tendency toward feeling down. This has been magnified since I became pregnant in April. And although the first trimester was admittedly worse, I've been feeling consistently low. One of the most frustrating things about the way I often feel is that friends, however hard they try, don't seem to understand. And I don't have the vocabulary or the wherewithal to try to explain.


A few months ago, my dad (who is the most godly, generous, faithful, influential, sweet sweet father I've ever had) emailed me a song.



(<- this is dad and me at my church youth group's high school graduation ceremony in 2008)


I didn't listen to the song for weeks, but when I finally did, it immediately became my favourite. Then, just last week, I listened to it again, after not having heard it for a while.


It.wrecked.me.

I won't go into the wreckage details, but as I tearfully strained to sing along I felt understood. Not really by the writer of the song, or by the downtrodden soul who penned the Psalm it was based on, but by the One who breathed Himself into both. As I sang, I knew that the God who wrote history was intimately aware of how I felt, even more than I was. So much so that He gave words to my pain. He gave me a song to sing. And it isn't a song that causes me to dwell on sadness and prolong negative thoughts and feelings. It's a song that acknowledges those things and then allows me to preach to myself the truth of God's love, faithfulness, sovereignty and graciousness.

Ultimately, my desire is to be satisfied in Him. It's true that I don't always feel that way, but by remembering that true satisfaction comes from God alone, I am set free from my mind's taunting blame and from the pursuit of happiness. (what's wrong with pursuing happiness? Mark Driscoll explains in a humorous and effective way here).  It's not about pursuing happiness. It's about pursuing God, the author and giver of all happiness and joy.

So here is the song:

Satisfied in You by The Sing Team

Based on my new favourite passage, Psalm 42 

Inspired by John Piper's sermon entitled Spiritual Depression in the Psalms. Seriously, It's amazing. He even talks about how it's important to have a "battery of songs that work on the greatest days of leaping and on the worst days of collapse". I highly recommend it.