Wholly, Holey, Holy

Wholly, Holey, Holy Wendy Speake Today’s Truth Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days (Psalm 90:14 NIV). Friend to Friend My eighteen-year-old son found me in the kitchen with my hands in the sudsy sink and my mind bubbling with deep thoughts. “Mom,” the man-child began, “I understand the idea of the God-shaped hole inside every person. I’ve heard so many pastors talk about it. I get it and I agree. Inside each person is a place that only Jesus can fill. Only He can satisfy. But if I’ve already accepted Jesus, why am I still so hungry? I turn to so many things that aren’t good or godly to fill my hungry. How can that be if I’ve invited Christ to fill that God-shaped empty place?”  I turned off the steaming faucet water and dried my hands, then walked around the kitchen island to the stool beside my son. A discarded pen and scrap of paper sat nearby so I took a moment to jot down Psalm 90:14, then slid it in front of him. Today, I’m sliding it down to you. The answer to Caleb’s question is both simple and complicated. We must have that one-time forever satisfying encounter with Jesus, yes. But we also need a daily ingesting of God and His Word to keep Him at the center of our lives, our thoughts and our feelings. Being satisfied and glad “all our days” requires turning to God every day. We can’t turn to Him just once and think that’s all there is. While our salvation is simple… living saved is much more complicated. One morning, consuming God’s unfailing love does not fill us up forever. Surely, God satisfied us eternally through the one-and-done act of laying down his sinless life in exchange for our sinful state. He satisfied the payment our sins require, cleansed our hearts and filled them too! But if we want our daily moments to be a joyful, glad overflow of that all-filled-up, satisfied reality… we have to come to Him daily instead of turning to the fluff and false-fillers this world offers! If we don’t turn to Him to satisfy us each day, we will turn to other things as though He never satisfied us at all. SATISFIED is my word for 2023. SATISFIED is my theme for these coming 365 days and well beyond! It was Blaise Pascal who said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” We all have hungry-hearts. They’re always turned on like a Hoover, sucking up everything in their path, hoping to find something to fill that hole and make us whole. Trouble is, none of those things work. They can’t make us whole… and they can’t make us holy. I’m reminded of the lyrics to the old hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy… only I’m singing Wholly, Holey, Holy! It’s wholly true! Nothing I’ve crammed into the holes in my heart has worked to make me whole or Holy but Christ Himself!  Every one of us is tempted, just like my son, to turn to things that are not “good or godly.” We self-medicate our hurts with food and Facebook, with a fork in one hand and a phone in the other. We cram entertainment and busyness into every crack and crevice, every free moment too.  Before we jump into another new year, however, consider what it is you turn to in an effort to get all filled up and satisfied each day. Then, intentionally choose to turn to Christ and His Word instead. You may have turned to Him once in a personal, saving way… but the goal now is to allow your heart to be fully satisfied by Him every day! Wholly, Holey, Holy. Let’s PrayLord, Thank You for Your satisfying presence and Your satiating Word! Teach me, here at the start of this new year, to bring my hurts and my holes to you, daily. You alone can make me whole… and holy! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.