My bathroom is clean enough. My pantry is organized enough. My schedule is ordered enough. Someone asked me recently if I was type A or type B, and I was torn. I am ordered and structured enough to be more ordered than most people, but not enough to be the most ordered person I know. I have chosen where to cheat; I have certain standards of tidy that suffice for our life and values. In these examples (and, if I am honest, in my most areas of my life) I am “satisficing.”

I learned this new term and accompanying concept this week, which for a word-nerd is an exciting feat! In his fascinating book The Organized Mind, Daniel Levitin mentions the concept of “satisficing,” a term coined by Nobel prize-winning Herbert Simon. Simon. a leading voice in the world of information processing, created “satisficing” to describe the way humans settle for a good enough solution for most of life. If we all always sought to find the very best restaurant or house cleaner or way to order our linen closet, we would easily steal time from the things we value most. We settle for good enough in the things that matter little and save our efforts for the things that matter most and contribute to our greater satisfaction.

As limited beings, we can’t do everything. As such, we have learned to satisfice, when possible, in order to seek greater impact and satisfaction in the things that matter most.

Satisficing to Seek the Savior

In a culture that loves to tell us how to order our lives for maximum joy and satisfaction, believers in Christ follow a different source. Influencers are happy (and well compensated) to tell us about the shoe organizing system that has literally saved their sanity or the picture frame that decluttered their fridge or the diet system that slimmed their excess fat and worry. But, believers in Christ have a different source for what matters most. For those who are hidden in Christ, our priorities do not come from our personalities or our preferences but from the living word of God. His word tells us that we will only be satisfied in pursuing relationship with Him, with lining our lives up with his purposes and plans.

I’ve been asking myself the following questions since learning about satisficing: Where and with whom am I satisficing? Who gets the best of my time, talents, and attention? Who or what gets the rest of my time, talents, and attention? Am I settling in some spheres so that I might prioritize Christ? Or, am I settling for my own selfish pursuits and comfort?

As the Lord would have it, I have been meditating upon Psalm 27 wherein David tells us where he refuses to satisfice:

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4–5).

David was willing to let other things go so that he might seek Christ with a whole-heart. When I let other things go, is it that I might free up time and energy to do the same?

If I am honest, I see in my flesh a tendency to satsifice with Christ rather than for Christ. I tend to settle for shorter times in his presence so I can get my checklist done or clean up the house. Oh, that this might be flipped.

The All-Satisfying Savior

We satisfice so that we can be satisfied. We give on the lesser things so that we can take more time on the greater things. And there is nothing and no one greater than Him and the priorities and passions that flow from a life rightly ordered around him.

For he never satisficed for us. He was tempted to do so by the Enemy in his temptation wilderness and at the very end of his earthly life. He was tempted to settle for less than God’s best for him and us (which meant the worst for him: death on a cross), but he chose to be satisfied fully in God alone (Matthew 4).

I love a tidy house and a full pantry. I love a fully-accomplished to-do list. But the slight satisfactions they offer certainly don’t last long. The dog keeps shedding, the teenagers keep eating, and the list keeps growing. If I satifice or loosen my expectations, I long that it would be to make more space for Christ and the things that he ordered his life around rather than in my time with him. He is the All-Satisfying One. Let us not satisfice with him.