I remember being a teenager and thinking, 'Life is out there and once I get away from here I'll find it and be free.' I didn't put it in just those words. It was more like a kind of 'angst'. I see it everywhere. People live for the weekend. They long to be married if they are single. They want to retire if they are working.
"Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." - Jeremiah 2:12-13 ESV
Oppression can cause depression and people seem to lose the ability to retain joy. Life seems to seep away and we go looking for it or perhaps we lose hope. We despair and think we will never have what we had before. We will never find that thing that will complete us or satisfy us.
"In him was life, and the life was the light of men." - John 1:4 ESV
I talk about Jesus a lot. You may have noticed. I'm not looking for a soulmate or the fountain of youth because I have Him. I have come to believe He Is that thing that was missing in my life. The Greek New Testament informs me that this is so and I have found it to be true. I still get dissatisfied with things, places and institutions. There is much I don't understand or even agree with about how life seems to be but He adds flavour to every dish. He floods my heart with joy when it becomes a barren wasteland. He causes me to love people even after having to drive next to them on the highway.
"But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit." - Acts 13:51-52 ESV
Actually, It is the Holy Spirit who does this. He Is this filling and is involved in it because of Jesus and Christ is the focus of it.
"But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me." - John 15:26 ESV
People who have everything and those who have lost everything can still have this and this is no 'second place' thing. The stuff won't mend that cistern. People can't either. God may use people in the process but Jesus is the key ingredient.
Jesus says things like this...
"All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." - Matthew 11:27 ESV
That is why I talk about Him so much. He is my favourite subject and I also worry about people who seem to be happy (and unhappy) without Him.
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