When You've Finally Got What You Wanted and You're Still Not Satisfied

Think about the last time you got something you had

worked for for a long time. Maybe it was a promotion or a

new house. Maybe it was the number on the scale you'd been

chasing for two years and you finally got there. You

celebrated. And then somewhere around the three-month mark or

maybe sooner, you notice something familiar, a

restlessness that was supposed to be gone by now. And then

we're off to the next new Psychologists who study this

have a name for it. They call it hedonic adaptation, first

described by researchers Brickman and Campbell in 1971.

Their core finding was plain: human beings have a happiness

baseline they return to, regardless of what happens to

them. Positive events produce a spike. Then life settles back to

where it was. The new house becomes just the house. What was

relief becomes a new starting line. Brickman and Campbell

studied lottery winners, people who had won hundreds of

thousands of dollars.

Within a few months to a year after winning their happiness

levels had returned to where they were before the win, in

some even less. The thing that was supposed to change

everything had changed almost nothing.

come back to what research says about why. But first,

welcome to daily devotions for busy lives I'm Bart Leger. If

you finally got the thing you chased and felt let down by how

little it changed. So let's talk about why. And I know this

pattern. Over the I've looked forward to plenty of milestones.

The award or the raise I was sure would make a difference

once I had it. And every single time, the elation wore off

faster than I Life went back to normal. And before long I was

eyeing the next level or the next achievement telling myself

that one would do it. I've had to learn slowly that the things

of this world were never built to fill me up. They keep

promising and they keep coming up short. Maybe you know the

feeling. You worked towards something for years and you

finally got it. What a little while, everything was Then the

restlessness crept back. The same one you thought the

achievement would cure. Most people really don't have a name

for that, so they draw the wrong conclusion. Well, they picked

the wrong goal or they need to aim higher next time. So they

start the chase over. Sure, the next thing was going to make the

difference and it never quite does. This is old news to the

Bible. The wisest, wealthiest man who ever lived ran the whole

experiment and wrote down the results. Listen to Ecclesiastes,

5-10, "Those who love money will never have enough. How

meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness." Solomon

had everything, or just about everything. Wealth beyond

counting and anything else he wanted, he simply reached out

and took. And at the end of it, he wrote that none of it

satisfied him completely. None of it filled him. He kept using

one word, meaningless. Like chasing the Vanity. Emptiness.

You close your hand around it and there's nothing there. Just

like trying to grab smoke. Here's the part that most of us

miss. That emptiness is by design. God built your heart so

that no created thing would ever be enough. Because if a or a

raise could satisfy you completely, then you'd stop

there. You'd settle for the gift and never come looking for the

giver. So the restlessness you feel after you get the is doing

its job. It's a signal. Trying to point you somewhere created

things can't take you. That changes what you do with the

feeling. You can let the restlessness turn you toward God,

which is what it was made to do. Augustine said it centuries "Our

hearts are restless until they rest in Him. The next promotion

won't settle it. Only God will." The researchers identified two

mechanisms behind the pattern. First, positive emotions from

any new circumstances fade as the new becomes familiar. Second,

achieving a goal raises your expectations so the thing you

just obtained stops producing the satisfaction it once did,

and you begin wanting something more. The novelist Ian McEwen

described it this way:

Solomon wrote the same thing, about 3,000 years earlier. He

had more wealth and accumulated experience than almost any

person in human history, and he sat down and wrote that none of

it filled him. He called it vanity. Ecclesiastes 5: 10 puts

it plainly:

the human heart to be restless in the face of created things

because He never intended for any created thing to be The

restlessness you feel is a compass and it's pointing

somewhere. Here's today's challenge.

The restlessness that's still there and aim it on purpose.

Spend 10 minutes with God today. Skip the request list. Just tell

Him you've noticed how the created things keep coming up

empty and ask Him to be what they couldn't. Father, thank you

for making us in a way that nothing less than you can

satisfy. Father, we've chased a lot of things and we felt them

fade in our hands. For the one listening who finally got what

they wanted and found it wasn't enough, help them see the

emptiness for what it is, an arrow pointing home to you.

Still the urge to chase the next thing and draw us to rest in you

where the restlessness finally ends. In Jesus' name. Amen. If

Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has been an encouragement to you,

would you take a minute and leave a rating and review? It

helps more people find these devotions and it only takes a

moment. I'd be so Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions

for Busy Lives. Remember, the restlessness you feel after you

get the thing is an invitation to come home to the only one who

truly satisfies. Come back next time for more encouragement to

help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and

have a great day.