For some people the quest for satisfaction leads them down the path of “pleasure.” Let’s be clear about this, I am talking about sensual things. I am talking about the fact that pornography in the form of videos, magazine and Internet web sites now grosses more revenue than the money Americans spend on all professional sports combined. I am talking about our national fascination with sex and the fact that some people are preoccupied with the cheap, fleeting, loveless but passion filled encounters that are so much a mark of our present culture. It is why commercials for such products as Viagra, Levitra and Cialis are as popular and as frequent as they are; for some people it is all about pleasure.

Never mind the fact that our country is overrun with teenage pregnancy, unwanted births, a staggering use of abortion as a birth control device and once solid marriages that are destabilized by extra-marital affairs. There is a high price to be paid for our fascination with the pursuit of pleasure, and our society is paying that price right now. This, too, is part of what The Rolling Stones meant when they said, “I tried – and I tried – and I tried – and I tried, and I can’t get no satisfaction.”  We try the pursuit of happiness, thrills and pleasure, but something is always missing.

The last thing that many people may try in their pursuit of satisfaction goes under the heading of getting “high.” Americans are the most chemically dependent people on the face of the earth. We take more prescription drugs than any other nation on earth, though that could simply be a sign of an advanced medical system. Good medicine does not explain why we are also the world’s largest consumers of illegal drugs or the fact that 1 out of every 6 Americans is an alcoholic.

The use of cocaine in rock or powdered form is epidemic in our society. The use of heroin and marijuana (for non-medical purposes) is a symptom of a deep spiritual need that is going unmet. There is a clergy colleague of mine who is still battling a 20-year addiction to heroin and who explains his continued use of that drug by saying “It gives me a little bit of peace for a short period of time.” Here is the truth about all of our pursuits of satisfaction — be it in the form of happiness, thrills, pleasures or highs; at best they can bring a little bit of peace for a short period of time!

The reason this is true is because all of these things that fuel our futile pursuit of satisfaction are things that work from the outside in. All of these things are behaviors or experiences that must be drawn from the world around us and then brought into our lives. As a result, whenever the world around us shifts or changes in even the most negligible way we are made to realize over and over again that satisfaction, that sense of being completely content has once again eluded us. The works of the flesh or the acts of the sinful nature are forever unsatisfying because in order for any of them to work there is something from outside of ourselves that must occur.