Praying for God to Fill up My Emptinessಮಾದರಿ

Loneliness

Whenever we feel lonely—and all of us feel lonely sometimes, even when we’re not alone—we want to fill up that empty place with meaningful connection with other people. We think that if we can just find the right people and build the right kind of community, all of our needs for companionship will be met. Somehow we see a connection with God as something wholly separate from connection with others, as something relegated to the religious realm, or perhaps even as something optional for when we’re in the mood or a crisis.

But we are kidding ourselves if we think that the finite human beings who come in and out of our worlds can meet all of our needs for connection. No matter how close people come, no matter how kind and consistent they are, it won’t be enough. We will always need to be intimately connected to our creator, the lover of our souls, the only one who will ever know us completely and love us perfectly and unendingly. And perhaps it is only a sense of loneliness that gets us thinking and moving in his direction.

Fortunately, God does not make himself difficult to find. In fact, when we look at the Bible’s story, we discover that driving its storyline is God’s intention to dwell with his people. That’s what was happening in the Garden of Eden. That’s why he told the nation of Israel to build him a tent. They were living in tents out in the wilderness, and he wanted to live in a tent in the middle of their camp. Once they were settled in the land, he had Solomon build a temple, and he came down to live among his people in the Most Holy Place in the Temple. 

Then, he moved even closer. When we turn the page to John’s Gospel, we read that “the Word became human and made his home among us” (John 1:14). After his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, something incredible happened that assures us, once again, of how much God wants to be with his people. On the day of Pentecost, God came down to dwell—not in the Tabernacle, not in the Temple, not simply among his people. Instead, the fiery presence of God descended to dwell in his people. Never before had ordinary believers experienced the presence of God in this way.

 If you have become joined to Christ by faith, it is only because the Spirit has done a work in you to make you spiritually alive (which is called regeneration). The way he did that was to bind you, tether you, join you to Christ. The Holy Spirit unites us to Christ and creates in us a hunger for communion with Christ. This means that the loneliness you feel might be the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, nudging you toward the pursuit of greater intimacy with the lover of your soul. 

Question to consider: Do you think an increasing grasp of God’s desire to dwell with his people could make a difference in the loneliness you may experience? Why or why not?

Prayer: Lord, I ask you to work in the emptiness of my life, filling me with the Holy Spirit as your presence once filled the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle. I don’t want to relate to you from a distance. Make me holy as you are holy so that I can anticipate living in your presence for all eternity. Help me to sense that you are with me, even within me, and that I am never alone.