Reflections on Moses #4 – Satisfaction
The Satisfaction with Life Scale was created by researchers as a way to assess an individual’s satisfaction with their life as a whole.
People judge how they feel about the five following statements using a 7-scale scoring system, with 1 being “strongly disagree” with the statement and 7 being “strongly agree” with the statement.
1. In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.
2. The conditions of my life are excellent.
3. I am satisfied with my life.
4. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.
5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.
How would you rate yourself on a continuum between dissatisfied and satisfied?
Moses didn’t reach all of his personal goals. He never made it into the Promised Land. That was because he got angry one day at the Israelites. He didn’t represent God to them. So God said, “No, you can’t go into Promised Land.”
But apart from that one longing, Moses did achieve a sense of inner satisfaction from life. He led the people of God, because God had called him to do it. 98% of the time, he fulfilled that.
He received instructions for establishing the whole sacrificial system. He got the blueprints for the entire tabernacle network. He did his best to explain this whole new way of relating to God.
As Christ followers, we long to hear the words “well done” from the Lord. We certainly want to hear those words at the end of our lives.
Yet I believe we could be hearing those words from the Lord following different seasons of our life, or even at the end of a day: “My son, my daughter, you did well. You did your best. You did it all through my enabling. You served people as though you were serving me. You fulfilled your life purpose for what could be carried out during the time you had. And I am pleased.”
Every night, or at the end of a long and difficult season, or at the evening of our lives, we can finish with a sense of satisfaction.
We feel satisfaction when we are doing things for God and doing them well.
~ Pastor Dave
