Why Your Life Feels Empty - And What Fills It

You got the job. You got the house, or the car you wanted, or the relationship you prayed for. And on a Sunday afternoon you are sitting on the couch feeling like somebody let the air out of you.

Nothing is wrong on paper, and that is what makes it lonely. You cannot explain it without sounding ungrateful, so you say you are tired and change the subject.

Busy only hides it

The first thing most of us do is get busier. More work, more plans, more people around the table. It works for a while. Then the diary clears, the house goes quiet on a Saturday night and the question walks back in. Is this it?

Getting the thing only delays it

The second plan is a goal. When I hit this number, get this promotion, finish paying off the bond, then I will feel full. You get there and feel good for about three weeks. Then the hollow feeling is back, sometimes louder, because now you have run out of things to blame. Nothing is wrong with you. You were built for something a salary cannot reach.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

- Augustine of Hippo

What the emptiness is telling you

Thirst is your body telling the truth about water. Emptiness works the same way. It is the deepest part of you telling the truth about what it needs, and it wants more than a bigger television.

Jesus met a woman at a well in the middle of a hot afternoon and said this to her:

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

- John 4:14 (KJV)

Three things that do change it

1. Give something away. A life built on taking in, meals, shows and compliments, runs dry. Serve in a kitchen, drive an old lady to the clinic, teach a child to read. Giving pulls your eyes off yourself and onto someone who needs you today.

2. Sit in the same room with the same people every week. Social media gives you the feeling of company without the weight of it. Belonging means showing up when you would rather stay home, until somebody notices the empty chair.

3. Live for something that outlasts you. When you are building toward something bigger than your own comfort, the question Is this it? finally gets an answer, and the answer is no, there is more.

Come and see for yourself

Every Sunday at 09:00 at Fountain of Grace International, 323 B Danie Theron Street, Pretoria North, the message starts with a real problem people are living through. No registration. No dress code. Come as you are.

You can also listen to why life keeps collapsing, why nothing seems to move and the principle that activates everything in the sermons archive.