Empty?

Do you ever feel empty – like there’s nothing in you anymore? I think that sometimes we all feel that way, especially as we age. 

Today I want to look at that feeling – that feeling of emptiness, in a different way.   I believe that being empty is not always a bad thing.

When we are empty handed, God’s hands fill all our needs.
When we can’t even do the little things, we may find God doing everything.
When we don’t have the strength to move, God will hold us up.

When our hearts and lives feel empty our loving Savior will fill those empty places with His Spirit.

When I think about being empty, of course I think about a cup of coffee.  I love my coffee.   But, if the cup is half full and it’s been sitting around, and we fill it up with hot coffee – all the coffee in that cup becomes lukewarm and loses its flavor.  

But when the cup is empty, and we fill it with fresh hot coffee – it’s wonderful! 

So, Being empty is not always a bad thing.

Maybe we need to empty ourselves – to get rid of the idea that we can handle everything without God’s help. We struggle to solve life’s problems, but resting on God’s goodness and love is really what we need to do.

Much of the time we have the idea that we can do life on our own.  Maybe when we realize that we don’t have the answer to the troubles that haunt us and realize that our storehouse is pretty empty, then we can open our hearts and minds to what God wants us to know.  Then He will fill us.

When you think you’re in control, you become so full of yourself that there is no room for God to come into your heart and fill you.

In the Bible, John 4 tells us about a woman at the well.  Jesus asked her for a drink of water, and she asked him why He, a Jewish man, would ask her, a Samaritan woman, for water.

This is what John writes.

Jesus answered her. “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  . . . “

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water (in the well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus told us that we never need to be empty.  He will become our spring of water welling up to eternal life.  As we fill our minds with the knowledge of our Savior, as we trust in Him to provide love, and friendship, comfort, direction, strength, and peace, we will feel the warmth of His unfailing care and we will be filled.

Empty is when there is nothing left but God and you discover that He is all you need.

Unless we give control to Him

our zest for life is stilled.

Unless we know our emptiness, we never will be filled.