Hidden in the recesses of the sacred book many have on their shelves but seldom open is a guarantee that needs to be read, internalized and trusted. It’s the guarantee of satisfaction, and, unlike many guarantees we hear or see, is a hundred percent valid.
This sacred passage is a record of Jesus’ words spoken to a multitude gathered from the regions of Syria, Judea and Galilee. This guarantee is prefaced by several paradoxical statements and followed by several more.
In the midst of these statements that startled their hearers is the guarantee: the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled. Guaranteed.
This guarantee transcends both geography and time; it’s both timeless and universal, so it applies to us as much as to the ones on the hillside who heard the words as Jesus spoke them.
It helps to think of this in reverse, considering the joy of being satisfied, and working back from there to learn how. It has everything to do with our desires, what we want, our hunger and thirst.
My mom once told me that, to be satisfied in marriage, we must learn to want what our spouse wants. This motherly wisdom mirrors Jesus’ guarantee in Matthew 5:6.
To control our desires, we need to pay attention to three –eds:
1. Yielded. Jesus knelt before the Heavenly Father in a garden just outside Jerusalem. He had, for once, come to a crossroads where His own will, as a human seemed different from the Father’s. We humans who, unlike Jesus, aren’t divine as well as human, see this crossroads often. So, Jesus exemplified for us the correct action in that situation. He said, in prayer to the Father, not My will, but Yours be done. Jesus yielded to the Father, yielded His desires to the desires of His Father. This is Jesus teaching us what to do with desires conflicting with God’s: yield them. Give God the right of way. Suddenly, we’re on the path with His desires, aligned with Him, finding our will has changed; we now want what the King of the Universe wants. Now the probability of getting what we want has gone from 0% to 100%. Guaranteed.
2. Delighted. David wrote for us, from a different perspective, the process of having our desires met. The 4th verse of Psalms 37 is ambiguous, with two meanings that are both complimentary to one another and dually beneficial to us. Delight yourself in the Lord, writes the Psalmist, and He will give you the desires of your heart. There’s a two-step process here that unfolds the ambiguity. First, in delighting ourselves in the Lord, we find that He’s given us fresh, new desires, ones that match up with His. Second in the process is that He fulfills those desires. Again, we have desires in line with those of the Sovereign, Almighty God. As He fulfills His own desires, He’s fulfilling ours, too, because the same desires are both His and ours. We’re satisfied. Guaranteed.
3. Filled. In Ephesians 5:18, Paul instructs us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In the verse before that, he invites us to know the will of the Lord. Verse 18 reveals the way to gain what verse 17 avails, the will of God. In other words, to understand the will of God, allow His Spirit to fill your heart and mind. Imagine yourself standing under a vessel that God is pouring out upon you, into you. You’re standing under – understanding – what God is pouring into you, His Spirit, thereby, taking in His will as your own. You are adopting His will because you have opened yourself up to receive it. This is what these two verses mean. Now you are filled, Satisfied. Guaranteed.
By the three –eds, you can see how we can change our desires to match up with God’s. And God is righteous, so His desires are righteous. And now that we’ve adopted His desires, our hunger and thirst is for righteousness. And, as Jesus promised in His sermon to the multitude on the hillside – the Sermon on the Mount – we will be filled. Satisfied. Guaranteed!
