Lamentations 2:11-18
Do you feel empty inside? Are you tired of feeling alone, emotionally exhausted, and spiritually depressed?
Here are 4 signs the Lord is preparing to fill you and end your emptiness.
1. If You’re Emptiness Has Become Undeniable, This Is a Good Sign the Lord Is Preparing to Fill You
Have you ever been so busy and focused on an important task that you didn’t notice the smaller signs of hunger. Eventually, your hunger got so bad that it became more important to you than the current task you were so involved in, thus causing you to notice it all of a sudden and in an intense way.
This same thing can happen to us when it comes to our emotional and spiritual emptiness. When we are so focused on a relationship, a ministry, a job, or even with just numbing our senses with mindless entertainment, it’s easy to ignore the beginning signs of a growing internal emptiness.
In love, however, God will allow that emptiness to become so painful that we can no longer deny it (Lamentation 2:11-13). This pain cries out to us, “Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?” (Lamentations 2:13, NIV).
The first step to getting filled is recognizing that you’re empty so you can cry out to the Lord for deliverance (Lamentations 2:18).
2. If God Has Recently Opened Your Eyes to Reject the False Fillers, This Is a Good Sign the Lord is Preparing to Truly Fill You
In point 1 we talked about the need to become aware of the emptiness itself. But you have to go a step further. You also have to become aware of the specific ways in which you have turned to something other than God to fill you.
Lamentations 2:14 states, “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.” When we listen to liars who just tell us what we want to hear, our emptiness and pain only increases. Only when we replace the liars with truth tellers and we address the sins in our lives can our fortunes be restored.
Repentance always precedes revival. If you want to be filled with the Spirit, you must turn away from the flesh (Galatians 5:16, Romans 13:13-14, Ephesians 4:17-24).
3. If You Are Being Taught How to Pursue an Earthly Blessing with a Spiritual Mind, This Is a Good Sign the Lord Is Preparing to Fill You
We are spiritual beings with immaterial minds and hearts. But God has linked our spirits with a body. He has placed us on a physical earth. So while we must be heavenly minded and filled with the Holy Spirit, we must not forget to live our earthly lives in a meaningful way.
Colossians 3:2-3 states, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” This verse tells us to have a heavenly mindset, but it does not tell us to stop living a meaningful earthly life.
To be satisfied and filled, we must seek to do the will of the Lord while we are on this earth and we must do this with a heavenly mindset (Ephesians 2:10). To be living for Christ does not mean you forsake all human relationships, you forsake pursuing goals, or you lose all ambition to leave a legacy. Rather, to be living for Christ means you live this earthly life with eternity in mind. It means you seek to do everything – relationships, careers, hobbies – for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
4. If You Are Beginning to Put God First in Your Life Again, This Means God Is Filling Your Emptiness
Putting God first does not mean that we forsake every other desire. Psalm 16:2-5 explains:
I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.”
We have no good apart from God because without God first in our hearts nothing else will satisfy us. But when God is first in our hearts, it frees us to enjoy other blessings and other people too. When we run after our idols, we become empty. But when we run after God, he fills our emptiness with his goodness.
Here are 4 signs God is about to end your loneliness.