Only God Can Satisfy Your Emptiness: 3 Ways to Be Filled
We were just starting to believe we’d made it through the worst of the blustery winter days when the cold weather returned like a tempest fighting for one last victory. As I stared at the daffodils, crushed beneath the weight of the snow, a gentle invitation beckoned me, whispering, Only God can satisfy your emptiness; turn to him and be filled today.
Winter had worn on me, and another grey day felt nothing short of defeating. Nevertheless, I knew that my emptiness could be satisfied by God alone. Mostly, I knew this because nothing else had been working.
Only God Can Satisfy Your Emptiness
Perhaps this invitation to let God fill you sounds like something you could use today, too.
When we’re honest, most of us long for more fulfillment in our lives and greater depth in our relationships with God and others. Even when life is relatively purposeful, joyful, and complete, there’s still a deep ache for something greater.
Maybe we’re longing to encounter God’s goodness.
Brennan Manning once wrote these words: “We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”
Here’s the radical truth: God is everywhere. All the time. He is with us while we wait. He is with us when our senses tell us otherwise. God will never leave us.
Only God Can Satisfy: 3 Ways to Be Filled
If only God can satisfy us, how do we let God fill us? Here are three suggestions.
1. We pursue God in silence and solitude.
Every few years, I reread a book called Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton. I rarely read books more than once. However, I return to this book because I need its truths regularly.
One of the most powerful ways to empty ourselves and let God fill us is to set aside our agendas and pursue God’s presence in solitude and silence. This might look like an afternoon spent alone in a forest or five minutes each morning watching a candle flicker.
The goal of this time is to set aside our agendas and rest with God.
Ruth writes, “Solitude and silence are not self-indulgent exercises for times when an overcrowded soul needs a little time to itself. Rather, they are concrete ways of opening to the presence of God beyond human effort and beyond human constructions that cannot fully contain the Divine.”
What do we do in solitude and silence?
We center our thoughts on God’s love for us, allow all other thoughts to pass like clouds in the sky, and rest with the Lord.
2. We pursue intimacy with God.
Ultimately, pursuing solitude and silence is about seeking intimacy with God. Only God can satisfy us and fill the empty parts of our hearts.
This pursuit of intimacy often begins by creating space to be honest with God about our longings, needs, fears, and emptiness.
As Ruth writes, it is saying, “Here I am. With my whole heart, soul, mind and body I am here, ready and willing to move more deeply into relationship with you. I make myself available to you, and I will wait for you. There is nothing I can do to control the outcomes, There is nothing I can do to force your response or make your response what I want it to be. All I can do is put myself out there and wait.”
In this space, we wait for God. We rest in his presence. We make ourselves available to him.
3. We own our deepest desires.
Part of emptying ourselves to be filled by God includes being honest about our longings and desires. In silence, we pour out our desires and longings to God. We answer the following questions:
What am I longing for most right now?
What desires do I sense rising within me?
Do I need to sort through any emotions with God right now?
The deeper we go, we find that our deepest longings are longings to meet with God and be filled by him. Admitting to this can be scary. What if God doesn’t show up? What if our expectations aren’t met?
Ruth asks the following question: “Are you brave enough to own your desire, to say it and claim it as the truest thing about you, so that it can take you where your heart has been longing to go?”
In this place, you are finally able to empty yourself and let God fill you.
~~~
As for me, on this snowy morning, I sit for a long while by the window. I bask in God’s love and rest with him. Nothing spectacular happens; nevertheless, there’s no denying it. This is, indeed, holy ground.
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