The Futility of Emptiness

There are places you don't want to be, experiences you never want to have and situations you don't ever want to face. Generally speaking, we don't want to come up empty. An incident that happened to me this week prompted these thoughts. I had my regular medical check-up this past week and all the news was positive. The only issue that surfaced was some soreness in the area of my right wrist. The doctor suspects it's a touch of arthritis. He suggested some cream that I could apply to the skin that would help with the soreness and wrote down the brand and generic name of the cream. The next day I stopped at a drug store to purchase the cream. I found both the brand name and generic brand. To compare the ingredients, the number of ounces in the tube and other information printed in small letters, I reached into my jacket for my reading glasses case. When I look into the case there were no glasses. I had picked up the empty case on my way out the door of my house and left the glasses at home. When you need to read something, there is nothing emptier than an empty reading glasses case.

This experience is the stimulus for this blog on "The Futility of Emptiness." I understand that retailers may enjoy seeing empty shelfs when the empty shelfs indicate that all of their products have been purchased. Yet, empty is a very hollow word. Empty is not what you want to see when you reach inside a case for your reading glasses.

When I looked into the reading glasses case at the drug store and all I saw was an empty case, I was extremely disappointed. I managed to read the information on the cream packets, but it took a greater effort on my part than it would have if I had my glasses. There are valid reasons why we are disappointed when we encounter emptiness. Two reasons that stand out in my mind have to do with function and purpose.

The function of a reading glasses case is to provide a holder for a pair of glasses. As the holder of the glasses, it provides housing and protection for the glasses. If it doesn't function, it loses its value. From a practical standpoint, the case that holds the glasses exists and functions from an inferior position. The case itself will never be more important than the reading glasses it holds. Reading glasses enable us to read, not the case that holds the glasses. Imagine my reading glasses case saying to me, "Don't fret about leaving your glasses at home, you have me. I'm all you need." This is something that could never happen because cases that hold glasses do not speak, but this pretend moment points out the importance of functionality in our society and our lives.

God is our Creator. We are His creatures, created by Him in His own image and likeness. As our Creator, God is sovereign. He reigns over us. He sustains us. We do not sustain Him. What happens when the creature decides he is more important than the Creator, when the creature places himself in a superior position to the Creator. This is the exact situation that Paul addressed in writing to the church at Rome in Romans 1:24-32. Two verses pinpoint this functional disaster.

"Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen (Romans 1:24, 25).

The loss of functionality is problematic in many areas of life. Perhaps I'm old fashion but I remember a day when politician were individuals who served the interest and needs of the people who elected them. Their position as elected official was not for their own money, power or political advancement. Their function was to help people in their needs by being public servants. At the present time, is this the way the political world functions? Politicians stand apart today in such aloofness that they cannot even be held responsible for any wrong they may do.

What I have said in relationship to those who are elected to public offices applies to my own profession, that of serving as a pastor. In my mind the function of a pastor is to serve and minister to the people. He seeks to feed their soul with the manna from God's word, love them and pray for them at all times and especially during the difficult experiences of life that all of us will encounter and always be available to them. When and if a pastor decides that the people exist for him and his needs comes before their needs, it is a functional problem. I fully understand that pastors and their families have needs that the congregation should be aware of and for which they should show concern. I have to say that the congregations I have been privileged to serve have shown as much or more concern for Brenda and I as we ever showed for them. It comes down to functionality. When the body of Christ functions according to God's design, the relationship will be marked by fulness of love, joy and fulfillment.

Sports teams, especially professional sports, is one more area where function is critical. Lack of success is a guarantee when one individual decides that he/she is the team. No team can be victorious when each individual performs in an isolated, selfish manner rather than in a complimentary role where the whole team functions as a unit to maximize the talents and strengths of each individual team member.

When we encounter emptiness, there will always be a lack of function but there will also be a loss of purpose. When things function as intended, they work as they are supposed to works. When purpose is realized and fulfilled, meaning is fulfilled. Purpose speaks to the deeper part of life. A person can function for an entire lifetime by getting married, raising a family and pursuing a vocation, but will that individual find purpose in the midst of the function? Without a sense of purpose and meaningful fulfillment, function becomes a routine, a burden to bear and can actually end in emptiness. We need purpose to give fulfillment to function.

Major Ian Thomas made a statement that speaks to the importance of purpose in and with function.

Man was so engineered by God that the presence of the Creator in the creature is indispensable to his humanity.

Man was surely created to be functional but to do so with a sense of purpose. God's command found in Genesis 1:27, 28 has both function and purpose.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Being created in the image of God sets man apart from all else that God created. The image of God in us means we are created with purpose and for purpose. The assignment that God gave to us to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue and have dominion means we are created to be functional.

An empty case without reading glasses is a mere inconvenience, certainly not a deal-breaker. On the other hand, a life that is consumed by emptiness is a futile, sad affair. When that emptiness leads to distorted function and loss of purpose, the very design and intent of God for our lives is violated.

We can escape the futility of emptiness by living lives that function according to God's design and that have the purpose for which God created us to fulfill. God help me to live a life of fulness because it has both function and purpose!