The note came as a response to a book I had sent. It filled me in on the last few years in the life of a family friend. It was a good letter, and one comment in particular grabbed my attention. The writer was telling of being happy in her recent remarriage, after the death several years ago of her husband. She had repeatedly said “no way” when friends and loved ones would ask is she would ever consider remarrying. A few years ago, however, she allowed a widower into her life, who “twisted her arm”, and she said yes to his proposal. She wrote,” he has brought me so much happiness and has filled a void I really didn’t realize was there”.
That is where most of us are, before the Lord. We are walking around with gaping holes and needs, and we think we are doing just great. We are traveling through this life with big voids that we don’t even realize are there. We repeatedly say “no” to the intervention of anything Godly in our wonderful lives. We are upwardly mobile, materially wealthy, educationally successful, and emotionally stable. We are on the fast track to health, wealth and the good life, and we put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doors of our lives. However, the Bible says that without Jesus in our lives, we are poor, wretched and blind. We think we are on top, but at worst we are naked, and at best we are covered with filthy rags. We indeed have a deep void that we don’t even realize we have. Until… the Lord whispers His love into our ears, and reveals Himself to our hearts. He opens our eyes time and time again, even after our conversion, to just how void we were. He fills our lives with joy in Him, and we wonder how we ever managed without Him.
That is just speaking of our initial salvation. Even after salvation, as we grow in the path of turning every millimeter of our selves over to the Lord, we notice more and more places in our being, where our voids that we did not realize we had, are being filled. While it is true that we give ourselves totally to the Lord in salvation, the working out and living out of our salvation and total submission to Jesus as the Lord, can be a lengthy process. We are not eager to let go of some things, even though our heart belongs to our Savior. While I am ashamed to admit that there are instances in my life in which the Lord has had to pry my fists open, I am eternally grateful that He is patient and loving and sticks with the job I asked Him to do of molding me into His image.
That is what we do when we accept His gift of salvation and ask Him to fill our void. We give Him permission and ask Him to go through our entire being, searching out the places of “no” and forming them, in His all knowing way, into places of “yes to His divine will. The key is to trust God to know what we need, and lead us into that. Only He knows all of the voids in our life, and is able to lead us into the best filling of those voids, whether it is in a remarriage of a widow and widower, or any other longing of our heart.
I had to take one of my children to Albuquerque recently. The schedule of the family required that I do the driving to the appointment. Anyone who knows me knows that Albuquerque and I do not get along (However, anyone who knows me from my younger days of living and driving in Chicago, Cedar Rapids, and the Fox Valley will wonder what on earth has become of me!). Albuquerque may as well be L.A. Anything greater than the usual two-lane highways of my current country living, makes me nervous. I had to drive it myself. I asked the Lord to have mercy and get us there (and back) safely, and help me keep my cool. It didn’t really help matters that my daughter called my cell phone shortly after I left the house and told me not to get in a wreck and die! So I added that to my prayer.
We made it to the appointment without incident, but in the midst of the whole episode, when it was taking much longer than I anticipated to even be seen, let alone be ready to leave town, my impatience and frustration (and fear of rush-hour traffic) grew and seemed to overtake me. Didn’t the Lord know that we would now be in the middle of the heavy traffic time? My nervousness was threatening to get the best of me when the familiar still small voice whispered a little more loudly, “Did you ask Me to get you in and out of the city safely?” I answered yes. “Then are you going to trust Me to know what you don’t, and honor your request?” My only response had to be a humble, “Ok, Lord”. Since I asked, I had to trust that He would work it out; and He did. At 5:30, when we left the parking lot in the middle of the city, we drove smoothly, even amid much traffic, out of town and on down the road.
While we many times fret and say no to the Lord working out the filling of voids we don’t know we have, He is accomplishing His plan and purpose in us- those who are committed to becoming all that He wants us to be in, and for Christ. What may appear to be we allowing someone or something to “twist our arm” into doing something, is actually the Savior of our souls and Lover of our hearts at work in our lives, submitted to Him, to both will and do His good pleasure.