Every Need Met, Every Emptiness Filled

Ingrained in the depths of every human being is an unquenchable longing. It’s an aching desperation, a desolate hole waiting to be filled. Some may say it’s a longing to be loved, or maybe a longing for purpose, to be someone, and do something great. Those are real desires, for sure, but they are actually part of a broader longing—the yearning to be satisfied, whole, made complete, restored. 

Colossians 1:16 (NKJV; emphasis added) says, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” First Corinthians 8:6 (NIV; emphasis added) echoes this: “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live…” Many other Scriptures also point to this mind-boggling truth that God formed us for Him—His honor, His purposes, His wondrous plan. Because we were made for Him, it is no surprise that we were born with a deep longing inside of us—a longing for Him—even if we did not realize it at the time. The creation is always searching for their Creator, crying out to be united with, be living for, and utterly adore the One who imagined them, knitted them together, and breathed His life in them. 

But until our eyes are opened to this reality, we spend our moments groping around the earth, desperate for something to fill the utter emptiness we have in our souls. The emptiness comes from our absolute necessity for God. Nothing else can fit there; it’s too cavernous for anything other than the eternal God. You could search everywhere, and even attain the whole world (Matthew 16:26), but nothing will even come close to what it’s like to have Jesus fill that space. Since we were created for Him, we are not meant to be alone and dependent upon our own selves. We were divinely fashioned to need God to fill us and then continue to sustain us. 

But even when we accept Him into our hearts, we can often continue to live unsatisfied, the emptiness in our hearts only growing more desperate. Why? Because we haven’t fully opened ourselves to Him, allowing Him access to our innermost selves. In order to be mended, to be made whole, to be filled and satisfied, He has to enter those deep places of longing so He can do His healing work there. He sees us struggling, longing, searching, and He stands at the door of our hearts, waiting with incredible patience and understanding. He waits, gently knocking, deeply desiring to help us. It is our decision whether we open the door to Him or not. And if we do not, are we willing to continue wallowing in the misery of how empty we feel without Him?

Sometimes it is fear that holds us back from opening that door. Maybe it’s guilt, or both. We can feel ashamed of our innermost selves, humiliated at our failures and mistakes, afraid of what He would say if only He saw the horrible mess in us… but He already sees and knows, and chooses to keep loving us. Being both fully God and fully man, Jesus completely understands when we fall into temptation. That doesn’t mean He agrees with the sin; it means He has compassion on us, a love that runs beyond our shortcomings. How can we not open the lock of our innermost selves to such a merciful God? 

To fill our emptiness, all it takes is us coming to Him, being honest and real, and assured that He is the safest place to be. You can let your defenses down and trust Him with every fiber of your being, letting Him into your deep places. He wants you, all of you—the broken you, the messy you, the vulnerable you, the “God, I don’t know what’s going on, what to say, what to pray, what to do” you. 

We were made for deep connection, fellowship, and communion with Him, to encounter the real Jesus in our everyday lives as we sit at His table (Psalm 23:5) and gaze upon Him, drawn deeper and deeper in His majesty. We were made to spend our whole lives getting to know Him, to truly know Him as He is, to experience the nearness of His presence, the realness of all that He is, the profound depths of His love. We were made to delight in Him, for He is altogether lovely (Song of Songs 5:16), and there is none like Him. None can even compare to how wonderful, beautiful, and glorious He is! He is all-encompassing, being both the all-powerful Lion and the gentle-hearted Lamb, the Master and the holy Servant, the just Judge and the merciful Savior. 

The more we taste of who Jesus truly is, the more our perspectives will shift. Everything else will become secondary to Him because we have finally found a higher thing, the higher One that is unlike anything and anyone else: the God who is our Everything. To call Him Lord over our lives means He has the one and only “first place” in our hearts. People and things are definitely blessings, but they are not, and cannot ever be, our god. To make them that would be to incur more emptiness, because only the One True Living God can fill us in a way nothing else can—a filling that lasts for eternity instead of running out after a little while. So let us place Him on the throne of our hearts as our one and only First Love, for it is Him alone who satisfies and meets our every longing. 

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