Years ago [my wife] and I were out to dinner and she observed that something was different about our marriage in recent years, something good. She asked me if I had any insight into what it was. After reflecting a bit I said with a smile, "Yeah, I think I know what it is. I think I've been realising deep in my heart that you can't satisfy me." She got a big smile on her face and said, "Yeah, that's it. And I've been realising the same thing: you can't satisfy me either." I imagine anyone overhearing us in the restaurant would have thought we were about to get divorced, but to us that realisation was cause for joy and celebration. We had never felt closer and freer in our love.
I love my wife more than words can express, and I know she loves me. But I can't possibly be her ultimate satisfaction, and she can't be mine.
And that's why our conversation at the restaurant was cause for rejoicing. Only to the degree that we stop expecting others to be "god" for us, are we free to love others as they really are, warts and all, without demanding perfection of them, whether a spouse, a friend, a son or daughter, or any other relationship. And only to the degree that we are free from idolising … human beings are we also free to take our ache for perfect fulfillment to the One who alone can satisfy it.
Christopher West, Fill These Hearts (Image, 2012), pp. 159-160
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