Can’t Get No Satisfaction

You don’t have to have grown up during the sixties to know the song “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. It was a big hit way back then and still is a favorite among fans fifty years later. Actually, Mick Jagger should have said, “I can’t get any satisfaction,” or “I get no satisfaction.” To say, “I can’t get no satisfaction” is to state a double negative which in English means “I get satisfaction.” In spite of the poor English, everyone understood Jagger’s message: “It’s hard to find pleasure, happiness, or fulfillment.” The truth that we learn all too soon is that life is hard work.

The Bible tells a story about how this situation started. The Bible says that when the first man, Adam, sinned he brought a curse into the world that made life hard. The Bible says, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life (Genesis 3:17).”

This raises the question, did God plan for our lives to be this way? Did God plan for life to be so difficult? Originally, God planned work to be a positive part of our life. The Bible says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).” Unfortunately, Adam sinned, and corruption entered the world. This corruption has affected everything in the world including our work-life. Because of the curse, we often don’t experience the joy of work and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Fortunately, we can reverse some of the effects of the curse. Through faith in Jesus, some of the effects of sin can be nullified. When we have a personal relationship with Jesus, we are set free from a meaningless existence and now find our true purpose in life—to live with God and for God. With this perspective, we can face all the ups and downs of life and find ultimate fulfillment. Mick Jagger was wrong. Through Jesus, we can get satisfaction, and someday, Jesus’ work of redemption will ultimately reverse all the effects of sin. The Bible says,

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (Romans 8:19-23).

So when you’re hard at work and everything feels like a big drag, remember that a better day is coming, and with this truth firmly planted in your mind, allow God to help you face each day with joy, knowing that someday you will arrive at a place where you will find true satisfaction. God promises that you can find true satisfaction with him—satisfaction that will far outshine anything this world has to offer.