Something is Missing

Each one of us has a deep seated need to be happy.  It is not a want, but a need.  People wish us a 'Happy Birthday', 'Happy New Year', 'Happy Christmas', and 'Happy Easter'.  We smile at each other to 'cheer each other up', we tell jokes to make others laugh and we give gifts to see joy in the face of another.  Each of these gestures bring a small glimpse of joy, happiness and peace, and they are wonderful things to do for another. We seek joy in movies, music, relationships, sex, food, and dare I say it even work, our car, and our home.
The problem with seeking joy in this way, is that it lasts only a short time and then it is gone.  So we seek it out more and more to maintain our state of happiness, we work more,  we play more, we spend more, all in the hope of filling the gaping hole that is in each of us, a hole that is bottomless, and can only be filled by one thing.

God created us to be filled with himself.  He created us with a God shaped hole in our hearts, that can only be filled by him.  He is the only one equipped to meet our need to be happy.  When I speak of happiness, I don't mean a constantly laughing, hilarious kind of happy.  I mean a well known sense of completeness, joy in any circumstance and a peace that cannot be felt any other way.  His joy remains even in the darkest of places, in your day to day life, and in the mountain top experiences too.  The gaping hole left in each of us when we were separated from God in the Garden of Eden, must be filled by God, so that all of the other things we do in this life, the things we enjoy, do not consume us.  Otherwise we become addicted to to our hobbies, activities and experiences, as we try in our own strength to fill the bottomless pit of happiness. 

I liken this to when you go and do your grocery shopping.  I always make sure I eat something before I go grocery shopping, otherwise I buy what I don't need, and what I would like to eat at that moment.  I end up spending much more than I anticipated because I am hungry.  So it is with happiness...

If you live life without filling the God shaped hole in your heart, you will find the cost will be more than you can afford.