The Beauty of Empty

God wants space and emptiness in us so that He can fill us. – Leah Darrow

This post diverges from our usual broadcasting and is slightly stolen, but what’s that quote by Pablo Picasso? Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Yeah, that’s exactly what’s going on here.

Over the past few (maybe 6+) months my heart has been hurting and pulled in so many directions. I’ve felt anxiety and depression. I’ve felt that I haven’t been living my truth. I’ve been running around trying to set and accomplish goals, living in the future and running straight through the present.

I’ve been trying to please others. And, in turn, have been hurting myself and depleting my relationship with God.

I changed my course this past week.

You may have caught my conversation with Matt of FaithAlive last week. Prior to that conversation, he and I sat at a coffee shop and talked about life a bit, gearing up for the recording of the podcast. He shared some of his story with me and how in order to recover he had to leave his past life behind.

I thought, “Wow. How?”

He trusted in God. He knew he was being called to serve and follow God, but in order to do so he had to empty himself. He had to free himself of what was tying him down.

That meant cutting certain people and pastimes out of his life.

Ouch.

We live in a world of noise and busyness. I’ve said this many, many times before. We live in a world where we’re constantly searching and trying to fill voids.

I’ve learned something over the past week. I’ve learned that there is beauty in the empty. What does that mean? That means that there is peace in releasing the pain and leaving the wounds open. Just like Matt did. Matt let those people and habits go and he sat in the uncomfortableness of not filling voids, and let God fill the void.

I recently had to empty myself. To sit in being lonely and uncomfortable and fight the desire to run back to a life that wasn’t bringing me fulfillment or closer to God.

And it’s not fun. But then I listened to this podcast by Leah Darrow. She talks about the beauty of being empty, the beauty of creating space for God to come in and fill that hole.

You are searching for something that only I can fill, says Leah speaking of Jesus.

How often do we search and search and search for something. We feel empty or we feel a void and we say, “Oh my gosh, I have to fix this. I can’t feel this pain. Something is wrong with me.” And we create a world of havoc and chaos in our lives searching for the unknown, instead of sitting in the emptiness and letting God fill that hole.

“Filling ourselves with the world only fills us with darkness,” says Leah. And that’s what I’ve been feeling recently. I’ve been living in anxiety and busyness and in this world, instead of letting go and letting God.

So, if you take anything away from this stream of consciousness and “Oh my gosh I’m feeling these feelings I need to write them down” post, remember this:

If you know that you aren’t living your truth. If you know that you aren’t happy. If you know that you’re filled with pride. Empty yourself. Break the chains. Break the habits. And sit in that loneliness. Give that emptiness to God, and He will fill it. 

I posted this while on the treadmill so let me know if there are any grammatical errors or if it straight up just doesn’t make sense.