Emptiness is something which we all feel at times. Sometimes it is during times of stress or severe testing in our lives. Sometimes it is because of how we feel about ourselves. I feel it at times when depression comes on my day. I never know when it will come, but I know it when it does. Emptiness is a feeling that makes you feel like you don’t have enough..of something. At times you can’t put your finger on what is missing exactly, but you know inside that something just isn’t right.
Some people try to fill that place with stuff or sex or money or ???? You know what you put there and many times it still doesn’t feel full or maybe it doesn’t feel like what you have in that spot isn’t quite enough. So what do you do then? Most people go out and try to find something else to add to the pile. Like traveling, spending money on trips for no apparent reason because every trip can’t be for business and most of us don’t have family scattered all over the place.
Why am I writing about this today? Because, it is usually during the holidays when people feel empty most often which is why most suicides happen during this time. Make sure that you are close to your family and friends, especially if they are empty-nesters and their house feels that way. Holidays are bad for those of us who have lost a loved one, especially if it happened on a holiday. My mother passed on Christmas in 1995 and a few months earlier around Easter of that same year, my grandfather passed, so I do know a bit about how this feels.
There is an empty place at the table when someone isn’t there, an empty room or closet but most of the time the emptiness is felt inside yourself, as if something is missing from your life and you just don’t know what it is. That is where knowing Jesus comes into your life because that spot which has felt empty for a while is shaped specifically for and filled only by your Savior. It is a part of each person on Earth which each one of us has, it isn’t there because of something we did or didn’t do. That longing for feeling is part of your life and mine until we find the Person Who actually fills that space.
The only One Who does that is Jesus, the Son of God. It cannot be filled by a person that you have a relationship with except the Person of Jesus. It can’t be filled by anything other than Him either, so if you are reading this and you know what I am speaking of, don’t go looking for something or some other person to fill that place because it can’t be done. Only Jesus fills that space, so give Him the chance to make you whole and you will never feel empty again. I promise.
Christianity has never actually followed this path because there has always been resistance to God’s Word and the Truth which is contained within it. In some form or another, that resistance has spurred the message of salvation and following Jesus to expand into the world. Just as people went across the world after the languages were confused at the tower of Babel, Christianity has gone to places where it was the only religion of real hope. In today’s world those places and the people in them violently oppose the Christian view of the world and this has been happening since the first century.
Many people play at church and many of them think that they are saved because until you can see a real change in their lives and hear it in their speech or in their actions, you truly cannot tell. Some of them can pretend so well that those around them may not be able to tell if there is a change happening in their lives or one which has already happened. Now, don’t read something into my writing which isn’t here! I am not saying that a certain percentage of people who claim Christ as their Savior are really not saved.
But…what if you don’t believe this? What can you say about God and His love for you if you haven’t trusted Jesus as your Savior? If you are in that position, then I suggest that you seek Him out for your salvation soon. Because the time of grace which the world has enjoyed for the past two thousand years or so is coming to an end. I won’t be presumptuous or vain enough to even try to give you an idea of a date or year in which He will return, but He is coming soon.
Whether you have accepted Jesus as your Savior or not, the church is a family. An extended family, but a family nonetheless. Why do I call the church a family? Because we are linked to each other by the blood of Jesus our Savior! Through Him we are adopted into God’s family, 
We are tasked with getting out of our comfort zones each day. Some of us more than others, but at some point we do step out of our “zone” during the day either at work or at the grocery store on an airplane or a bus. We will come into contact with a person who needs to hear something from us and that is where the voice of God speaks up and tells us to talk to that person or this one!
dirty from the dust and the water at the shores of Lake Galilee. He didn’t look like He just stepped out of a dry cleaners, with His clothes all white and glowing. In many of our churches today, Jesus would not be allowed in because of His dress and His hair and beard, because He would look like a homeless person. Even He said that “
Humor and laughter have been proven to be beneficial to our health, mostly in ways that doctors can’t really explain. It does release endorphins which ease pain and it has been shown to help in healing with some cancers and other injuries such as surgical and other breaks in the skin and bone. Here is a quote from one of many sites which give the benefits of laughter: “Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.”
This book has always fascinated me because according to some scholars it is the oldest book in the Bible. It is an account of a man who worships God and acts as a priest for his family, offering sacrifices for their transgressions regardless of whether they have asked him to do so or not. In the beginning of the book, God is meeting with “the sons of God”, those angels who are tasked with watching over humanity at the time, I suppose. Then Satan shows up at the meeting and God brags about how righteous His servant, Job, is.
Our revival at church is going on and last night we had a great sermon on Jesus’ parable about the good Samaritan. It touched a lot of hearts and I think opened some people’s eyes to the fact that we do fall short in our lives on a daily basis. Do Christians sin on a daily basis? Yes, we are human after all. Do we fail to be real, true neighbors to those in need around us on a daily or weekly basis? Unfortunately, yes we do. Granted, some of us do fulfill the function of being a neighbor at least to some extent, but do we try to do it very often?
