Have you ever felt it?
That feeling of dissatisfaction and inner restlessness. Of relentless fear, hopelessness and emptiness?
How have you tried to make it go away?
Have you tried distracting yourself by throwing all your time and energy into your career? Have you attempted to fulfill yourself by finding purpose in your love for someone else? Or maybe you’ve turned to more destructive things just to drown out the feeling?
Can I ask you? Has any of that worked?
I believe that at some point many of us, if not all of us, have felt this. Sometimes we attribute this feeling to our circumstances and we point to the things we don’t have as a reason for what we’re feeling.
Oh I don’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend, so that’s why l feel lonely.
I’m not as far into my career as I’d like to be so that’s why I’m dissatisfied.
The list could go on and we’d never get to the underlying issue which is that the problem isn’t what you don’t have on the outside, it’s what you don’t have on the inside.
What Don’t You Have on the Inside?
Loneliness, hopelessness, emptiness, dissatisfaction, constant fear all these things point to things missing within you.
It’s why these feelings follow you even when you’ve found someone to love, even when you’ve reached the height of your career, even when you have enough.
It’s not that your outward life isn’t full it’s that your heart isn’t.
But the question is: What is it that your heart needs to be full of for you to be satisfied?
We find the answer in only one place.
The One Thing That Satisfies
And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
John 6:35 (NKJV)
In the Bible we are told that those who believe in Jesus “shall never hunger” and “never thirst”, essentially, those who believe in Jesus shall be filled.
But this does not speak to physical hunger and thirst but to spiritual and emotional hunger and thirst.
When you give your life to the Jesus by confessing with your mouth that He is Lord and believing in your heart that He was raised from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)
This salvation comes with the promise of the Holy Spirit who shall spring up in you as a fountain of living water that will never leave you thirsty. (John 4:13-14) That will never leave you dissatisfied, which will never leave you empty or hopeless.
There is Hope in Jesus
…at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world
Ephesians 2:12 (NKJV)
As this verse reveals, a life without Christ and without God, is a hopeless one. But when you come to Christ you will be filled with a hope that will never disappoint. You are promised a hopeful future not only in this life but after death.
When you come to Christ you are also delivered from the fear of death as Hebrews 2:14-15 (NIV) reveals:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
You’re Not the Only One
These Scriptures also make it clear that you are not the only one who has felt these things. People nearly two thousand years before us lived lives without hope and were afraid of death.
And many in this present age also live without hope and are afraid of death.
I have also felt that emptiness and hopelessness and relentless fear.
But I’ve got to experience deliverance from the fear of death and the fear of God’s wrath and judgment.
I have received the deep, live giving fulfilment that comes with knowing the grace and love of Christ. And I now have a hope that brightens my days and dulls the sorrow.
And you can receive this too.
The Only Cure Is Christ
You too can be delivered from that feeling of dissatisfaction, of inner restlessness, of relentless fear, of hopelessness and emptiness.
The truth is that the only cure for the emptiness in your heart is Christ. Not another person, not your career and not the things you have.
You just have to open your heart to receive the grace and love Christ has already poured out. (Romans 10:9)
Maybe you struggle to believe that but God still extends His hands to you. All you have to do is take it.
When you do, He promises that you will be filled, you will never thirst again and you will have everlasting life.
