Fill the Void

A conclusion I came to in my teen years and have become a firm believer in is this, inside of every one of us is a God shaped gaping hole that if it's not filled with God a person will seek everything from self worship to drugs, sex, alcohol, thrill seeking, extreme work, or possibly just trying to find a spouse or someone to fill that spot that rightfully belongs solely to God alone.

Satan knows our weaknesses and he will try to get us to exchange God Almighty the great Creator for any number of  things.  If he can sidetrack us, and we choose to seek anything or anyone more than God, than we have chosen a counterfeit that cannot even begin to compare with God!

Let me put it this way, most of my life, I've lived as a follower of Christ.  Mom and Dad brought my brother and I up in the church.  Early on in life I realized my need to be forgiven for the wrong that I'd done in order to have a clear conscience and most importantly a right relationship with my God, my Heavenly Father!  I remember especially at 14 yrs. old falling in love with God and wanting to please Him in how I lived and in the choices I made. There was and still is something that pulled me toward God like an attraction that nothing else could even compare to!

And here's where I've had my own counterfeit experience.  In my life comes something new that feeds my ego, it starts out as little by little, it stokes the desire in me to be accepted by my peers, through this I can see what everyone that I am friends with think about the stupidest things like if I had tacos for supper to measuring my sons growth in a given years time.  If you haven't already guessed, it's that social media thing called Facebook.  Never have I ever been more aware of my desire to seek approval for the things that happen in my life!

These are the things that are a cheap imitation of God's approval in my life!  Or if I look to my
husband to fill that void, or a friendship. These are all good things and even Facebook is an incredible tool, when used with the right motives.  I've had to set boundaries to keep from seeking these things before I seek God.  And to think God, Who made me, knows me more intimately than I even know myself, seeks to have a relationship with me is humbling!  I fall so short of being Holy as He is holy, but in my most earnest and desperate way that I know how, I want to seek Him first and with all my heart!  I think that is what Jesus was getting at in John 4 :23-24 when He was talking to the Samaratin woman at the well. He told her that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship him in Spirit and in truth.  I remember reading this in several translations trying to understand the meaning of these words that Jesus spoke.  It finally clicked when I read it in The Message.

“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit
in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who
worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” (‭John‬
‭4‬:‭23-24‬ MSG)

Back to that First Love that I had as a young Christian, my deepest desire was to please God, to seek Him by taking time to read His Love letter to me, the Bible and by talking to Him as I would my closest friend!  God is ALL of that and more!  I'm so glad He drew me to Him and has continued to  draw me to Him! Sometimes taking time to read my Bible and praying feels more like an item on a checklist, but when I'm really seeking God, I put aside the distractions. I set boundaries saying if I can't control my time in the Faebook world and if that's what I'm thinking about when I firstget up in the morning, then I am doing something so far off base it could Damn my soul!  I am letting something besides God to fill that void that ONLY He can fill!

That is why I must catch what I'm doing and redirect my course or as 2 Corinthians 10:5 says,
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Simply and Honestly my verse for the day as I logged into my reading plan for my devotions this morning came up as Psalm 27:4 (NIV).
“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
If I were to find another definition of how I am to seek God, I think David pretty well describes seeking God Simply and Honestly!  Incidently John 4:23-24 is where I got the title for my blog!
That's my hearts desire from the bottom of my heart to fill that void with a relationship with God!  He's  the only One to fill the void!

‭