Today is the final day of the music series here on the old blog and I am going to confess that I lied at the beginning of the week. I told you on Day One that I was going to feature only Sojourn music, but then I realized that one of the songs I desperately wanted to include was actually not written by anyone at Sojourn, it was instead written by Brian Eichelberger from Mars Hill Church in Seattle. I looked through the many songs that Sojourn has written to replace today's song, and while they are all amazing, this particular song has a very special place in my heart. So I decided to break my own rules and include a non-Sojourn song. I am compromising by including the Sojourn adaptation of the song.
Satisfied in You Audio
Satisfied in You
Brian Eichelberger
©
2009 Brian Eichelberger. Some rights reserved under the
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.
I have lost my appetite
And a flood is welling up behind my eyes
So I eat the tears I cry
And if that were not enough
They know just the words to cut and tear and prod
When they ask me “Whereʼs your God?”
So why are you downcast, oh my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
I can remember when you showed your face to me
As a deer pants for water, so my soul longs for you
And when I survey Your splendor, You so faithfully renew
Like a bed of rest for my fainting flesh
I am satisfied in You
So when Iʼm looking at the ground
Itʼs an inbred feedback loop that drags me down
So itʼs time to lift my brow
And remember better days
When I loved to worship you and learn your ways
With the sweetest songs of praise
Let my sighs give way to songs that sing about your faithfulness
Let my pain reveal your glory as my only real rest
Let my losses show me all I truly have is you
So when Iʼm drowning out at sea
And all your breakers and your waves crash down on me
Iʼll recall your safety scheme
Youʼre the one who made the waves
And your Son went out to suffer in my place
Just to show me that Iʼm safe
So why are you downcast, oh my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
I am satisfied in you
I had heard this song many times during my time at Sojourn, but it was not until a particular Sunday morning in at the end of 2012 when this song became real to me.
It was the Saturday before New Year's Eve in 2012, I was at home with the kids while Aaron was working. Around lunchtime on that day I got a text from Aaron telling me that he was currently in a meeting with his manager and they were on the phone with some higher ups in the company and that he was pretty sure he was getting fired. It was not long after that when Aaron informed me that he was being sent home. Turns out Aaron had shared some company information with someone he was not supposed to and he was going to be fired. Aaron was such a man about the whole thing; he accepted responsibility and understood that he fully deserved being fired. However, it was scary to look ahead and realize that he would not have a job starting in the new year, and my income as a nanny would not be enough to sustain our family.
The next morning we went to church as we always do and we both felt as if we had the weight of the world on our shoulders. Aaron was feeling guilt and shame over his choices and what that meant for our family. I was worried about Aaron, and also our financial situation, and I was focused on loving Aaron and doing my best to not add anymore grief to what he was already feeling. The whole service that morning seemed perfectly manufactured for us. The whole morning we truly felt the presence of our Father offering us comforting and peace. It was on this particular morning that we sang "Satisfied in You" and it was like I was hearing the song for the first time.
My posture was very much like the song. I was downcast, staring at the ground, and my soul was disturbed. Then the line, "so it's time to lift my brow" came in the song, I did just that. I physically lifted my head towards heaven and I began to recall all the ways God had provided for us in the past. The burden was being lifted from my heart and I was giving my troubles to God because he was big enough to handle it.
As we reached the bridge of the song I was becoming quite emotional as I realized that this song described me. When Brooks sang the line, "Let my losses show me that all I truly have is you," my soul was shouting inside me, "Yes, all I have is Christ and he is enough!" By the final verse of the song I was crying so hard that I could not even sing the words, I could only stand there mouthing them and cry. Aaron and I truly felt like we were drowning out at sea on that day. We needed to be reminded that God had made the waves and that he had prepared a way for our salvation through the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we were going to be okay. That morning I experienced true satisfaction in Christ as he was all I had to lean on.
This is why I love music so much. Music is able to speak into a situation when sometimes words cannot break through. I don't think I would have listened to someone had they just spoken these truths to me. I think that I would have been too consumed by my own little world to hear anything said to me. But the music was able to reach into my soul and make me listen.
Are you downcast? Is your soul disturbed within you? Then lift your brow and look to Christ. He is sufficient to give you rest and provide for your every need. He will keep you safe and provide, he will not leave you to drown. Call out to Christ, grab hold to him and let him hold you up. All you need is Christ, find rest and satisfaction in that truth.
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