Filling the Void

If you are seeking fulfillment or purpose or meaning from this world, I have some bad news: you will never find it. There is nothing in the world that will fill the deepest void in your life—not the ultimate car, not the greatest job, not the most beautiful girl or the most handsome guy, not the greatest education. There is nothing that can even come close.

King Solomon, one of the wealthiest men who ever lived, had everything he wanted. Yet he went on a binge, trying to satisfy his appetites with the wrong things. He went after passion. He went after possessions. He went after things of beauty and buildings and land. Here was his conclusion: “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

Have you ever been ravenously hungry and tried to satisfy your appetite with snacking? It just doesn’t work. You want a real meal. In the same way, we were created with a God-shaped hole in our lives. We have been created to love God, to know God, and to bear fruit. Everything else is secondary.

Think about it: Everything else in life is secondary to knowing and loving God—your career, your family, and even your ministry. Those things are all important. But the first and foremost purpose you have in life is to know the God who made you.