Praying for God to Fill up My EmptinessSample

Loss

We all have dark thoughts about God. We don’t instinctually expect the best of him. We easily entertain the idea that God is cruelly against us rather than lovingly for us. 

The book of Ruth tells the story of a woman who not only entertained the idea that God was against her, she became convinced of it. “Don’t call me Naomi,” she said to the women of the town. To be called Naomi, which means “pleasant,” was a cruel joke to her. “Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer, and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me?” (Ruth 1:20-21).

Naomi saw the events of her life—the loss of her home, her husband, her sons, and life as she knew it—as proof that God was against her. Naomi’s understanding of the world, her grasp of God’s ways with his people, was that God gives us what we deserve, what we’ve earned through our good or bad behavior. It was the same understanding Job’s friends seemed to have—that in Job’s suffering, he was getting what he deserved. Naomi and the friends of Job seemed to have based their understanding and expectations of God on the law of Moses, which promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. But, what we see again and again, from the beginning to the end of the Bible, is that God repeatedly gives his people what they don’t deserve. It’s called grace. We think we want this life to be fair, but that’s not really what we want. In a perfectly fair world, there’s no room for grace, getting what we don’t deserve. And it is this undeserved favor, the grace of God, that proves to be the defining element in our lives.

Imagine the difference it might have made if Naomi had been able to hear and take to heart the words of Romans 8:31-32, written long after her lifetime, where Paul writes: “If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” 

When all you can see are the empty places, put your confident hope in what you can’t see. Put your hope in a God who is for you. God has not raised his fist against you; instead, God’s hand is at work in your life. See that even the hardest providences of life come to us through our Redeemer’s nail-scarred hands. He’s allowing this emptiness in your life, seeking to draw you back to the place where he intends to bless you beyond what you can imagine. You just can’t see it at this point in your story. Trust him to the end. He is guiding the story of your life toward restoration, toward redemption, toward resurrection.

Question to consider: What kinds of assumptions or questions about God and his goodness have you had because of circumstances in your life? What does it mean (and what does it not mean) that God is for you?

Prayer: Lord, I ask you to work in the emptiness of my life, just as you did in Naomi’s life. Help me to see my emptiness, not as evidence that your hand has turned against me, but rather as an invitation to turn toward you. Forgive my dark thoughts about you and fill my life with your saving and sustaining grace.