Empty lives and weakened foundations seem to go together. I have seen this each day in the college courses that I teach and have experienced in my own life. When we build our lives around anything other than Jesus nothing within is where it needs to be or in its proper perspective. Having a life without a firm foundation leads to an emptiness that is hard to explain but we’ve all experienced. It wasn’t until 2006 that I began to understand where this emptiness came from and how I actually contributed to its development.
Empty lives can indicate the absence of Jesus
Even though I thought I was saved in 1988, and as I have shared with the readers of this blog over the last few years, from 1988 until 2006, things that should have brought me joy either didn’t or simply didn’t last long. There were a few verses that began to affect how I saw myself and my relationship with the Lord once I did finally accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. The first, For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God (Hebrews 3:4), puts things in perspective. David, the man who God said was after His own heart, was led by the Holy Spirit to write, I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well (Psalms 139:14) which conveys the idea that mankind was created by God and not some accident or development of an evolutionary process.
While I was an undergraduate, I took courses in psychology, anthropology, and sociology which were my declared minors. One of the things that fascinated me about all three of these social sciences was a common facet of our basic nature – mankind has what some consider as a per-programmed need to worship something. Durkheim, a sociologist from the late 19th and early 20th Century, spent much of his life’s work studying various primitive groups and noticed that in the absence of what he considered as “standard religions” (such as Judaism and Christianity), mankind would create a complex faith system to appeal to the spiritual world. As an avid Atheist, Durkheim appealed to the rationality of these alternative religions until he reaffirmed the religion of his childhood, orthodox Judaism. What Durkheim learned was that mankind is a social animal, not just in a physical sense, but in our need to relate to some sort of higher being or power. Not only is this demonstrated throughout the Bible, but we see it in the world around us.
Paul demonstrates this human need for spiritual fellowship was manifested in God’s efforts to reach down to mankind: For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Hebrews 2:10) and in this verse: Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2). God understands our basic need to believe in something greater than ourselves and He understands the sins that take hold of us that prevents us from worshiping Him. When we think of the story of Cain and Abel we see the story of all humanity – a choice to worship God as He has prescribed or to attempt to worship God in a false religion we’ve made. Cain’s decision to offer his own style of sacrifice not only resulted in an empty gesture that had no real meaning, but in a rebuke from God and an anger that led to him murdering his own brother.
Empty lives impact everything we do and all that we have
I was asked if it were normal for Christians to have an empty feeling; the answer is yes. One can be a Christian yet have a life that is focused on things other than Jesus. Let me be clear here – those who are without Christ will have an empty life for the simple reason that they are bound to sin and the world. This was a part of the topic of the first part of this two-part series. Christians can have empty lives when anything other than Jesus becomes their focus. It is one of the reasons that Jesus taught his disciples, No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Luke 16:13). When we try to hold onto the things of the world and serve God, not only do we engage in a war between the Holy Spirit that resides in us and the desires and enticements of the world. This is a dangerous place for any Christian to be because the emptiness it brings can easily take root and grow.
