Our world could use some good news couldn’t it? In many ways it’s a frightening time in which to be living; wars, rumors of wars, the constant threat of terrorism, the ups and downs of the stock market, violence in the classrooms, so many friends and relatives with cancer, families torn apart by abuse and divorce. Life is not only hard; it’s often downright unfair, as some people seem to have more than their share of troubles. You might even be one of those people.
I once overhead a middle-aged gentleman remark: “Every time I think I have my life together, something happens and it’s falling apart again!”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a world where everything was fair and people didn’t get sick, and sad things didn’t happen, and nobody had to die? Who wouldn’t want to call such a place their “home?”
Did you ever wonder why there’s such a longing in each of us for just such a kind of place? It’s a longing for home, you know. A longing for our real home. You see, we weren’t created to live in California or New York or Florida or anywhere else on the face of this planet. We were created for our real home: Heaven.
The Bible describes heaven in Revelation 21:4 as a place where God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.”
And why won’t there be any more tears or death or sorrow or pain? Not because we’ll have all the money we ever wanted or all the fame or all the knowledge or any other tangible item.
It’s because we’ll have God Himself.
In Revelation 21:3, the verse right before the one about no more tears, pain or death, it says: “Look! God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them and they will be his people.”
That’s why there won’t be any more tears or pain or death. We’ll have what we always really needed to be whole—the constant presence of God Himself.
The great 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote that each of us has a “God-shaped vacuum” in us. There’s a hole, so to speak in our hearts that leaves us longing for something more than this world has to offer. It’s a hole and a longing that God put in us when He created us. He knows only He can fill that hole even though we try to fill it ourselves with all sorts of other things. Some of us try to fill it by buying “stuff” or with relationships or with work or sports or with learning or religious rituals. Some even try things like food or sex or drugs or alcohol. But none of these can fill the God-shaped vacuum in us…instead they only make it bigger.
The only thing that fills that hole and makes us whole is when God fills it with Himself by putting His very Spirit inside us, one life at a time. And when God’s Spirit lives inside us, we discover our purpose for living.
A health crisis often makes us realize how precious life is and can send us scurrying to discover the meaning of life. So, why are we here?
It’s really quite simple. Do you know what it is?
We were created to praise God.
That’s right. We find true joy, true fulfillment when we realize there’s Someone bigger than us. Someone greater than us. Someone worthy of every bit of praise we can give.
We were created to praise God with our lips…and our lives.
And when we do, there’s a feeling of peace and power that comes over us that hardly can be described. It’s a feeling that reminds us this world is not our real home.
If you’ve never really had praise for God well up in your heart, we pray that you will as you read He Cares today. Revelation gives us just a teeny glimpse of what it’s going to be like in heaven standing before the throne of God with Jesus at His right hand and us telling them how much we love them.
And if you’re still trying to fill that God-shaped vacuum with other things, I pray you’ll allow God’s to fill you with Himself and satisfy that longing for your real home.
