[396 words]
Empty space gets filled. Have you never noticed this phenomenon when you move into a larger house? You think to yourself “oh, I’ll have so much room now!” But no…as time goes on various things encroach upon that space. You thought you were going to have a home office? Joke’s on you when it becomes your wife’s craft storage room. If you have empty space you might want to figure out what you want to do with it fairly quickly, or someone else might make that decision for you.
Jesus once told a story of a man who finally got rid of an evil spirit. However, the departure of the spirit left an empty space. Then the spirit says, “‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). Empty space gets filled, and often it gets filled with junk—or worse. This man’s problem was that the house was “unoccupied.” But if someone else was already there he would have told the evil spirits to take a hike.
We all have to make decisions about what is going to fill the spaces in our lives. If we don’t make the decision the decision gets made for us. So, as for my house, may it be filled with the Lord! If you notice that you have a free half hour in the morning, decide what you’ll spent it on. Why not make that a devotional time to start the day off right? I think that would benefit you greatly, but you have to decide to use that space for that purpose. Otherwise something else, perhaps something much less wholesome, will come in to gobble that half hour up. Then your final condition is worse than if you never had that half-hour free to begin with.
If there is junk in your life clear it out. But don’t just leave the space empty. Fill it with what is good. May God fill us with His goodness so there is no room for evil in our lives. May we all decide that empty spaces belong to God.
Doug Wells
Camden Avenue church of Christ
Parkersburg, WV