We all think at some point in our lives that we are useless, empty and meaningless. From the most outstanding thinkers to the simplest common man that exists, we all question whether what we do in our lives has any meaning and if we have any sense for life.
Living, in a very simplified way, we could say that it is a long journey to look for a meaning, to look for a reason to live and live for that reason. The finding of that reason may be what moves us forward or then what makes us endure for centuries in secular history and the failure to find that reason can be what demotivates us mortally.
But why do we feel this way, empty? Why do we feel helpless? Why do we think we have no meaning or purpose in life? Probably, each of the people you ask, should show a different way to "fill in" with something.
Today I do not want to find a correct answer to that question, that of so simple, can occupy a man for all his life, but what I want to do is meditate with you about what makes us feel empty. And what led me to question this was a verse that I read today in my daily meditation.
The verse is found in the story of the last King of Israel, Hosea.
After King Hoshea, son of Elah, was imprisoned by King Salman, Samaria was invaded by the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites to Assyria, placing them in the cities of fears. This happened because of the great sin of Israel, who had despised the Lord as God, not believing in Him and not repenting of their sins of worshiping other gods.
But among all this history of calamity, which culminated at the end of the Kingdom of Israel (remembering that the kingdom of Judah remained) what caught my attention was a verse, which made me meditate deeply on the word.
"THEY FOLLOWED IDOLS AND BECAME LIKE THEM" 2RE.17.15
Today I want to say that you are defined by what you cultivate.
That people of Israel lived worshiping vain things, idols and vain gods. The word vana means emptiness and God, through the writer of the book of Second Kings, says that this people became vain, empty and, in other translations, useless, because they cultivated something useless and empty.
I wanted you to think with me today. If you cultivate something without meaning and that does not exist and puts all your life expectancy into that something that does not exist, then you become someone, because all your goals, hopes and all your faith are deposited in something that does not make you it will not give anything in return, something without a future and without a past, something that has no meaning, because it never existed, never had life.
If I believe that ten minus one equals five, everyone will say that I have a useless mathematical faith, because it will get ahead of me, when it comes to telling a change in the bakery that I do not know how to do that abduction? That will be meaningless to me and will hurt me, it will hurt me, because I will lose four reals of that change.
In the same way, if I believe in gods that do not exist, what will all my faith in them advance? They do not exist! And although I believe in something that does not exist, there will not be only why I believe. It will not advance to pray, because they will not hear me, will not advance believing, because they are nothing, will not advance to have hope in them, because they will continue immobile, will not advance to live for them, because they do not exist.
You may think that what I say is for one or another religion, that what I say you could lead someone because "that message falls well for him". But in reality what I say is for yourself.
You should think now: "but do not worship another god!"
Maybe not? The Bible says that the love of money, greed, is idolatry. And in that way we know that everything you put in God's place in your heart is idolatry. Now I ask myself again, what have you worshiped? What have you revered? What have you honored in your life?
Have you adored your body and given more importance to that than God? Have you sought more to enrich yourself than to have fellowship with God? Have you lived according to your work or school and not according to God's will? Have you put anything else, person, event, above God in your heart?
I do not judge what you have done, because I do not know what you have done and I do not have to say that you have worshiped something else in your life. That is why I ask you today to reflect if something in your life has been more important than the Lord and if that something exists, I do not say for you to stop doing it - unless it is something wrong, but to place it in its proper priority, which is below God.
Let God grow in your life. Let your worship be His reason for living, whether it be working, studying well, where you are and what you are doing, serving as a worship of God. That when you work, your work is dedicated to the Lord, that when you study, your study is for the Lord. May everything you do - be considered by the secular or sacred world / church - that everything be for the Lord. This is to place God first in your life, that is to worship God, that is to worship God.
This emptiness that you feel today or that you have felt may not be anything, but perhaps it is the fact of putting the world in first place and God in the second place. Continue in the world as long as the Lord allows it, but in the world, even in that environment hostile to the Gospel, have God in the first place, offering everything you do and the emptiness will end.
Live without that emptiness in your heart, live with a purpose, live for God with Jesus Christ!