Emptiness

The devotional I read this morning was in Wishful Thinking (Frederick Buechner). Think about Matthew 11:28: "Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest."

Do you think it is true that all of us have an emptiness that we are trying to fill? We buy more things - better cars, better houses, better phones, wonderful vacations - in the hopes of filling in what is missing in our lives. I see people who call themselves "spiritual," and they are trying to fill emptiness with crystals or horoscopes or solitude. None of that is in and of itself evil or wrong.  But, I think, none of it fills the emptiness.

We who are not poor in material wealth have the ability to try things like this. Those who do not have the material wealth do not. 

Buechner's thesis around the Matthew scripture above is that those who are poor are desperate enough to hear the words Jesus speaks. We are all seeking to fill the emptiness - if we are unable to try to fill it with what won't work, we might just be willing to try what will work - God.

My prayer is that we will all reach for God first, and find the blessing of completeness that is real.