Give me your full attention, Yahweh.
Answer me.
I am so weak and empty right now,
So insecure.
Secure my life,
I live it for you.
Lean toward me.
I’m leaning on you.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 86, page 198)
“Still can’t fill the hole you left behind,” sings Brendan Yates on the Turnstile song “Fly Again.” The refrain repeating numerous times drives home the pain of an empty heart.
There are lots of people and things that leave empty spaces in our lives when they’re gone. We all experience these in different ways. A loved one dies. A romantic relationship ends. You have to relocate across the country for a new job. An old friend grows distant. You’ve let your ethics slip. The work you’ve found such meaning in is coming to an end. The kids move out, leaving you with an empty nest. You keep overspending on the credit cards and feel like you’re sinking financially.
These are all external causes of emptiness. That doesn’t make them any less real, but there is a core internal emptiness we carry with us. It’s been described almost too glibly as a God-shaped hole. But there’s no better explanation than that. God and God alone can fill it. But that doesn’t keep us from stuffing other things into it in thoughtlessly useless attempts to fill it. It’s a waste of effort.
No amount of competitions won and trophies and medals earned.
No amount of food eaten or parties attended.
No amount of mountains climbed and airplanes jumped from.
No amount of money accumulated or spent.
No amount of exotic vacations taken or photos posted.
No amount of weight lost or muscle gained.
No amount of items purchased or gifts given.
No amount of sex and pleasures experienced.
No amount of games played and movies watched.
No amount of good deeds done or pats on the back received.
All of these and more amount to nothing when it comes to filling the emptiness. A long line of zeroes. The hollowness remains.
But we were in fact made to be filled.
Paul wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11).
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Jesus himself is the drink that satisfies, the secret to being content whatever the circumstances. And prayer is the connection with him that brings that filling.
Paul wrote: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him …” (Phil. 3:7-9a).
I find that it’s not so much individual prayer done on my own that fills me as it is prayer in the company of the people of God — as the church gathered in worship or as simple friends offering up prayers for one another. As the Spirit unites us to one another, we’re united with our Lord as well. I believe that’s what Luke is describing in Acts: “And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:52).
Prayer may not be our first response, but it’s our best response to the emptiness. Like everything else to do with praying, it’s not magic. There’s not always a sense of completion. Mother Theresa’s journals reveal a sense of what is often referred to as desolation, of lingering emptiness, after having profound experiences of fullness of God earlier in her life. To those who have received much, the desire for more is that much greater.
Because our personal prayers aren’t magical, we’re always tempted to turn to other sources of filling. This is why Paul lays out two distinct “spirits” as competing to fill us: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). Prayer helps us choose God’s Spirit over alcoholic spirits or any other false filling.
Prayer: My Lord, I fall for so many false fillings. I am a sucker for the advertisements, selling me life at its best when you’re freely and always available and just a prayer away. So here I am. Fill me. Enlarge my heart and fill it yet again. Help me cease my grasping ways — grasping for stuff and feelings and experiences — and help me settle into a contented life, filled with you. And deepen my connection with your people that we together might fill what is lacking in one another as we keep company with one another in your presence. In Jesus. Amen.