Lately, my family has been super into cleaning out everything. Rooms, closets, drawers, you name it…it’s cleaned! New year, new house!!

Now as much as I love that refreshing feeling after something is cleaned, I don’t like feeling like stuff is out of place or empty. This morning I walked past the laundry room and I noticed an empty space. That particular place held nothing specific, it basically was just a giant pile of everything we didn’t know where else to put. Usually when we clean things out, that is like the one spot nobody would dare to dig into. I wasn’t attached to this random pile of useless things, but I didn’t feel refreshed looking at it being empty.  Why didn’t I feel refreshed?! It was cleaned!!

I realized that I don’t like feeling empty in my life, and I would imagine you don’t either. I need to fill all the gaps with something. Whether it’s hanging a dreamcatcher in the empty space on my wall, hanging out at the gym in my free time, filling my belly with food when I am hungry, or filling that empty place in the laundry room with clothes and things I don’t use, I fill all the cracks and spaces. All of these things that I chose to fill in the spaces in my life are temporary. They don’t last. So what can I put in place of these gaps and spaces?  Something that will fulfill me and never leave.

God.

In John 3, John says

³⁰ He must increase, but I must decrease

Sometimes we twist this up and increase ourselves over God. We fill the spaces in our life with things that revolve around us. We fill with things that we think will lead us to eternal happiness. The truth is that those things will fade, but God will never fade and he showed that to us through his crucifixion. Jesus took our place on the cross and died for us so that we may live with him eternally in heaven. Believing in him and increasing him in our life, filling all of our empty spaces with him, we find fullness and peace.

I encourage you to increase God in your life more and more everyday. Fill him in all of the gaps and spaces in your life. Look to Jesus in all of your struggles and rest in him.

1 John 4:4

"⁴ Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world."