"But Simon says to fill your void with toy after toy after girl after
boy. After all isn't that what we were meant for?" -Jimmy Needham, For Freedom
"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him." Romans 6:8
I
love football. I love Saturdays and watching the Vanderbilt Commodores
run through the SEC gauntlet and the Furman Paladins start a new legacy
in the SoCon. Some of my earliest memories are of juking in and out of
tackles of the imaginary linebackers in my front yard.
So
over the past month or so I've loved the return of football to our
calendars with training camps and preseason games. At this point, this
could be THE year for every team (and it will be Vandy's year my
friends)! It's a pretty awesome time of year.
But this
summer's football news has not been all positive. Aaron Hernandez, an
other-worldly talented tight end for the New England Patriots, was
arrested and charged with first-degree murder. By all accounts,
Hernandez survived an incredibly tough upbringing to earn a scholarship
at the University of Florida where his violent roots were never
overcome. And trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went, all the way
to the NFL.
And there's every college football
analyst's whipping boy, Johnny (Football) Manziel. What began with
pictures and videos of what might be called excessive partying has
turned into accusations of bar fights and autograph selling and you name
it. He's a young man who plays and apparently lives on the edge of
control and chaos.
As I've watched and listened to
commentators talk about both of these athletes, what I can't ignore is
how many times I've heard, "They have everything. I can't imagine why
they insist on jeopardizing all that for this nonsense." In Hernandez's
case it sounds something like, "If he just could've kept himself out of
trouble he'd be making thirty million dollars in the next five years."
For Manziel, the refrain goes, "His parents have millions and he doesn't
want for anything. Why on earth isn't that enough?"
It's
not enough because money will never fill the hole in our heart crying
for completion. But don't mistake this for a blog about the dangers of
money. Because people living in poverty are striving to fill that same
void.
We're all looking for happiness I suppose. To
feel complete. To be enough. There's a hole in all of us begging to be
filled. So we try. We try to fill it with money. Or things. Or careers.
Or relationships. Or drinks. Or you name it. And you've heard its
symptoms.
"When I'm making the big bucks all this will finally be worth it."
"I'm ready to find someone because I am so sick of being single."
"In five years when I've gotten that promotion we'll have made it."
"If only I were a little taller and a few pounds lighter."
And the list goes on and on.
We
need. We want. We need. We want. We've become creatures with insatiable
appetites searching for that one thing that will fulfill us. So we read
self-help books and visit life coaches and plan out strategies and map
our futures to find that perfect joy that will bring our lives purpose
and joy. But is it possible that like medicine masking the symptoms of a
disease we've missed the root cause? That in filling our lives with
things and relationships we're just digging the hole deeper? That we're
becoming emptier?
Maybe that's the reason millions
of dollars didn't "fix" an NFL player's tendency towards violence and
hate. Maybe that's why while having everything at his fingertips, the
Heisman Trophy winner still needed more. Maybe that's why marriage
hasn't filled the lives of my friends who were desperate to find their
life's partner.
Is it possible that the root of the
hole is a word we've tried to shy away from: sin? I'm not talking about
wrath, envy, lust, greed, gluttony, sloth or whatever that last of the
seven deadly sins is. Surely these are symptoms, but sin is something
much deeper. It is a reality we live in that tells us that the God who
provides and nurtures and loves isn't big enough. That we need more.
That the pit in our soul longing for completion can be filled if we just
find the right thing to fill it.
The church talks a
lot about sin, but what if the conversation changed? What if Jesus'
resurrection didn't save us from the guilt of all the things sin leads
us to do, but saved us from that separation from the God who knit us
together? What if Jesus saved us from a life devoted to trying to fill
that hole and just went ahead and filled it himself?
I
think that's what Paul means when he talks about being rescued from sin
and being raised to life in Jesus. That we're rescued from doing
whatever we can to fill that void because God has already made us whole.
Here's
what I know: I've spent a lot of time in my life trying to find joy, to
find my life's purpose and meaning. And I've looked in A LOT of places.
Just like Aaron Hernandez, Johnny Football and every other person who's
ever lived. I've gone down a lot of paths to make my life feel
complete. But what I've found is that when I stop trying to fill my life
with happiness, God seems to provide it. I love my youth, but my job
doesn't define me. I love my friends, but who I know doesn't fill me. I
love my girlfriend, but she doesn't make my life complete. I don't make a
bunch of money, but my bank account doesn't measure my worth. No, I'm
defined by the Creator who made my fingerprint different than yours. My
value comes from His love. My hope is found in the God who would leave
99 behind to find the one. The hole in my heart has been filled by a
Father who would let his son die for me.
And it will
always be more than enough. May we stop looking for joy under every rock
and around every turn and know that love has already found us.
forever unfinished...
