Emptiness

11/14/2023

This is an article I posted in the Island Dispatch newspaper, circa 1975. Any significant edits will be bracketed { }…

All of us seem to have an undefinable yearning, a restlessness. This empty place in our lives leaves us feeling incomplete. There always seems to be something else… to buy, to eat, to put on a shelf… something bigger, something better, something new. It’s the proverbial carrot leading the donkey. Yet, when we fill our lives with material things and recreation, alcohol and pharmaceuticals, or fill our minds with empty philosophies and mysticism, the emptiness remains. {It’s like using a thin bed sheet when camping in the middle of winter. It simply doesn’t keep out the cold.}

“There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it’s a dead end.” — Proverbs 4:12.

Let’s face it. Man is incomplete without God. God sent Jesus on the mission to make us complete, to fill that nagging emptiness inside.

Why is it then that calling on Jesus is our last resort? Shouldn’t it be the first?

Maybe you have the idea that God will put you in a cage and expose your selfish motives for public disgrace. However, Jesus came to take the blame for our moral failures, and He also suffered the public shame in our place. Please remember that Jesus did not come to condemn your existence but instead, to justify your existence. (John 3:16–210.

If you recognize a lack in your life and have considered the Good news that Jesus brings, God will fill and fulfill your life.

{If He forgave me and gave me new life, I am sure He will do the same for you. If you can be sincere and honest with Him, talking to God in this way is the very definition of prayer.}