Nobody wants to be empty, right? Empty means poor, sad, lonely. Empty means cold, old, dead. We don’t want to be associated with those things. We don’t want to be empty. We try to fix it. But we mess up. We don’t become full-filled on our own. What to do then?

“God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them” writes C. S. Lewis in Williams and the Arthuriad. We are not called to be empty. But we are called to be empty enough.

God wants to fill us with his blessings. God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them. If there is no place for God, He can’t come in. If there is no place for gifts, He doesn’t give them.

Are you empty enough? Is there space for God in your life? Do you want to make room for God? Or are you so full of yourself that there is no room left for anyone else?

“He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease”, said John the Baptist (John 3:30, NRSV,*). We do need to decrease in order to be able to create space for Christ to increase his presence in our lives. But we are not left alone even in this empting process. God is already calling your name, planting a deep desire in you to become empty enough, hungry enough for Him.

 

Dear God,
If I am empty, fill me with your grace.
If I am too full, empty me for your grace
If I am empty enough, bless me with your grace.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: Are you empty enough? How do you get empty enough?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you make room for Christ in you!

* [As you might have noticed, I enjoy reading the Bible in different translations and love comparing them. I have started linking the Bible verses to Biblegateway.com so you can easily read (and compare) them in the different versions I’ve used while preparing each post.]

Image courtesy of Cindy Ford, design Mari-Anna Stålnacke. This post is refurbished from 2010. Linking up today with Unite the Bloggersphere , Three Word Wednesday and #tellhisstory.