Filler

A few weeks ago I mentioned a thought that came to me in the middle of the night. It’s still swirling around in my head. Here’s the thought:

“There is not enough human acceptance, affection, attention, or approval on earth to make up for your lack of an acute awareness of just how much God loves you.”

This thought reminds of the “God-shaped hole” concept. The idea that every person is born with a hole in their life that only God can fill. A longing only He can satisfy.

While I agree with that concept, I believe we need to go a little deeper.

I don’t believe having God in your life, having a personal relationship with Him through Jesus, automatically fills up that aching hole or satisfies that intense longing. I think it takes more than that.

I’m basing that statement on my own personal experience. For years–even decades–after I began my personal relationship with God, I continued to run around searching for something to fill up an aching emptiness in my life.

The sad thing is I apparently wasn’t aware of what I was doing or I’d have gone directly to God and asked Him to take care of it. Instead I looked everywhere else trying to find something or someone that could satisfy the intense longing that only the intense love of my Creator could provide.

I tried human acceptance. If only the right person or the right people would accept me, would include me, would like me . . . then I would be okay. Then I would feel like my life had purpose.

I sought human affection. If only this person would love me. If they would just want me and choose me . . . then I would feel worthy to be the person I was supposed to be.

I craved human attention. Since I wasn’t being accepted by the people I ‘needed’ to accept me and since I wasn’t being given affection by the people I ‘needed’ to choose me and love me, I unknowingly went about seeking attention from other people. I guess this was necessary in order to feel validated as a human being . . . because without attention from somebody, I felt like I was a waste of oxygen.

And when all else failed, I did whatever it took to at least gain people’s approval. I worked more than required, said yes to anything I was asked to do, and tried to anticipate other people’s needs and fulfill them before they even had a chance to take care of it themselves. Even if they didn’t approve of me, they would at least approve of my work . . . because it was excellent.

But none of it soothed the ache.

And it won’t for you either.

Without the very personal awareness of how much God loves you, the great lengths He went to in order to have a personal relationship with you, how many times He thinks about you every day, how intimately He knows you–and yet still loves you enough to die so you can live . . . until those are the thoughts that fill up your mind and until that is the knowledge that swirls through your spirit and until that is the backdrop for the life you live surrendered to Him . . .

You could possibly keep doing what I did for decades.

Use acceptance, affection, attention, and approval from other people as filler for a hole that God created in your life as His own place of residence. And there’s not enough of that filler in the entire world to even make a dent in the emptiness.