Julia
spent the summer working in an orphanage in Busia, Uganda. On the final day of
her internship, she went to the children to tell each one goodbye. One little
girl named Sumaya was very sad and said to her, “Tomorrow you leave us, and
next week the other aunties [interns] leave.”
When
Julia agreed that she was indeed leaving, Sumaya thought for a minute and
exclaimed, “But we will be all empty. None of you will be left!” Again, Julia
agreed. The little girl thought a few moments and replied: “But God will be
with us, so we won’t be all empty.”
If we are
honest with ourselves, we know that “all empty” feeling. It is an emptiness
that friendship, love, sex, money, power, popularity, or success can never
assuage—a longing for something indefinable, something incalculably precious
but lost. Every good thing can remind, beckon, and awaken in us a greater
desire for that elusive “something more.” The closest we get is a hint, an echo
in a face, a painting, a scene . . . . And then it is gone. “Our best havings
are wantings,” said C. S. Lewis.
We were made for God, and in the end, nothing less will satisfy us. Without Him, we are all empty. He alone fills the hungry with good things (Ps. 107:9).
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there. C. S. Lewis (RBC)
