I’m re-reading some chapters of the book Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst and was struck this morning by this paragraph in which she addresses our never-ending need to be filled, with something… anything… that satisfies our deepest longings.
“If we grasp the full love of Christ, we won’t grab at other things to fill us. Or if we do, we’ll sense it. We’ll feel a prick in our spirit when our flesh makes frenzied swipes at happiness, compromising clutches for attention, paranoid assumptions with no facts, joyless attempts to one-up another, and small-minded statements of pride. We’ll sense these things, and we’ll be disgusted enough to at least pause… All these things we’re tempted to grab at? They won’t fill us the way they think they will.”
Frenzied swipes at happiness, paranoid assumptions, small-minded statements… all things we do in our flesh hoping for some relief, some acknowledgement that we are doing ok. She uses Paul’s prayer in Ephesians as a wonderful example of the difference between grasping and grabbing:
“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to GRASP how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be FILLED to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19
When we grasp (understand, take hold of firmly) the love of God and all the true riches He has in store for us, we are FILLED. Genuinely filled, like eating a healthy meal that nourishes instead of a temporary sugar or caffeine fix.
The world tries to get us to grab at any old thing for that fix. If we go out into the world, out into relationships expecting to be filled by them, we are going to be sorely disappointed. People disappoint. It’s inevitable and a part of human nature. If we are finding ourselves driven and controlled by things out of our control, we need to pause. It’s like putting water into a bucket with a giant hole at the bottom of it.
What’s the difference if we are rooted and grounded in Christ and His love? What if we let Him fill us up first and then we go out into the world, into friendships, into family life already satisfied and grounded in who we are?
We aren’t flattened by someone’s hurtful words. We don’t need to compulsively ‘fix’ every little thing. We aren’t obsessing about how or what or why or when (insert dilemma here) will be fixed. It’s not to say we’re ignoring life or problems, we just are grounded in Jesus and want to allow Him to steer the ship. We stop grabbing at what the world can do for us and we learn to grasp how profound God’s love is toward us and all our dilemmas.
Full, fulfilled, secure, accepted, content… these are all what comes when we allow ourselves to be defined by our Maker instead of other people. What a difference to go out into the world this way. We can be genuinely happy for others’ successes. Our ability to see the best in people replaces the side-eye cynical junk we’ve learned to live with because we’ve been hurt. We learn there is beauty in quiet surrender of things we don’t fully understand. The things we once grasped at become a little less intriguing in the light of being filled up with Jesus.
Jesus didn’t come so we would spend our lives grasping at straws and fretting over our position or status. Laying that stuff down isn’t easy, but how amazing that we have a Savior who came and actually told us to unload it all at His feet (Matthew 11:28).
He tells us to come to Him and He will give us rest. Make rest your starting point. Begin there, at His feet and get filled up. Instead of going out into the world as a sponge and soaking in all the things that never fulfill, go out already full and see the difference. Things don’t soak in as easily. We can discern things more clearly. Our emotions aren’t dependent on the actions of others. That’s how relationships thrive, that’s how our hearts come alive. No frenzied swipes at control, no weird assumptions that turn us into our own worst enemy. Just reliance on the One who asks us to sit quietly at His feet and get filled. The people who do that are the ones I want to surround myself with. I want to be like that. The freedom that comes when we let Jesus fills us up is better than any temporary success or self-made victory.
“The more you taste the sweet joys of Jesus, the more will sin taste bitter to your soul. Fight satan’s taunts with God’s pleasures.” John Piper
Into the Foolishness of God 
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