In the Empty

You know that feeling when you haven’t eaten all day, mostly because you’ve been so busy that food didn’t cross your mind? And at 12:00 at night or 1:00 you’re finally sitting down on the couch and all of a sudden you realize that you could eat an entire cow. So you go to the kitchen and put together the most random meal ever, but it’s the most satisfying because you needed it more than the normal turkey sandwich you had yesterday.

I say all of that to say; yesterday night at church was the most satisfied I’ve been in a while. I hadn’t had a spiritual meal in so long because I’ve been so, so , so busy, but once I just sat down, and the piano started playing, and we started singing, nay, praising, and I could just sit and listen to the word of the Lord, I felt that pang in my heart where I was spiritually starving, and I was so hungry that I could have stayed there for hours to read the bible, or sing old hymns, or just sit and listen to someone else read the bible aloud, or sing old hymns…

You’d think that if I were that hungry, I would have gone to Wednesday night service a lot sooner, but I have to admit I was a little nervous because I hadn’t been in so long. It’s like having a friend that you love, but you just don’t get to talk to very often, and that gap of time just gets wider and wider until you’re just embarrassed you haven’t talked to them in so long, so you keep avoiding the awkward reuniting…that’s kind of what I was doing, I suppose.

What’s weird is that I’m thankful for the obvious hunger I had. I hate it when I don’t know if I’m hungry or not because I eat so much out of habit that I can’t tell the difference. I don’t like that. Maybe you don’t mind it, but when I eat, I like to know that I’m eating because I really need it, not because I’m bored and it gives me something to do. There’s something very satisfying about recognizing a real need and then having that need completely and utterly filled.

It seems to me that the filling means something. If I feel a physical hunger somewhere, and then I can also feel a physical fullness, then that means that the emptiness and then the fulfillment mean something: there’s something to be said about the thing that is doing the filling. Food satisfied physical hunger, not a little, or half-way, but completely, and that says a lot about food. What it is and what it means: It’s nourishment that is capable of satisfying a real need.

The same goes spiritually. I like that we can literally feel that heavy, weak, spiritual ache that follows God fasting. And I think it means something that that ache- hunger- can only be satisfied by the word, and prayer, and worship. Try filling it with anything else, and it’s only partial…like trying to eat dirt when you’re hungry- it might fill your stomach, but there is no real satisfaction, its false fulfillment.

The fact that I can feel that spiritual hunger like I did last night, and then have it so fulfilled reassures me. I’m hungry because God made a place for Himself in my heart, and it’s satisfied when I spend time with Him (literally satisfied) because I’m filling the place in my heart made for Him with Him, and with nothing else.

Hunger is a simple feeling. We all know what it feels like to be hungry, it’s universal. And I don’t think it’s an accident that every day we experience a physical need that can only be fulfilled by one source (food, not dirt, or just water, or paper). I think when we recognize hunger and then eat, we know what it means, really, to want, and then to be satisfied. I think God gave us something we know every day and do every day to teach us about Himself more, and about ourselves more. We have a spiritual hunger every day, and if we fast too long, we’ll end up starving, which can make different people go to different things to fill up the empty space (money,relationships,facebook...). But once you’ve had a taste of the word, and of the contentment and peace that comes when you find yourself in the presence of the Lord, you realize that that was the real “food” and everything else you tried to fit into the cross shaped space in your heart was counterfeit, and wasn’t going to fit even if- like the kids in the nurseries- you managed to force it into place.

I think that the empty is proof of the fulfiller. The fact that my physical hunger is only satisfied by food, means that food is the only thing that can satisfy my hunger, and I will return to food each and every time I feel hunger, because I know it is the true way to fill an empty stomach. I think that the emptiness people feel somewhere deep in their person validates that something is missing, and I think that having it satisfied, completely, In God validates that He is the true way to fill an empty heart.

The empty is proof of the filler. If I have a need, but it can be completely fulfilled, the thing which is fulfilling must be true, it must be real, and it must be the only source that can fill that need. Hunger is real, and food is real, and they depend upon one another. Empty hearts are real, and discontentment is real, and peace is real, and satisfaction is real, and they, likewise depend upon each other. But what is the food that carries the contentment and the satisfaction to an empty and dissatisfied heart? God. And if God is the filler, then God is real too.