Is Something Missing in Your Life?

By Alexandra Copeland

It is a very common sentiment that human beings are creatures of habits. We like patterns, and those patterns don’t necessarily have to be good ones. We grow up in the families we’re born in, and sometimes we learn from them and adopt patterns that hinder rather than help us. Someone might ask, “If you know they’re not good patterns, why not simply change them?” Well, there’s this thing called a ‘comfort zone’. It’s a place and space in life that is comfortable to us because it is what we know. Human tendency is to lock-in to the comfort zone, and when this happens, people may find it very challenging to leave it. They may complain that they don’t like their lives, that something is missing, but because they are stuck in what’s comfortable, they don’t see that their fear of leaving the familiar—of leaving the comfort zone, is what’s keeping them stuck.

Today, we have lots of technological gadgets and gizmos. They help to make our lives easier and convenient. We buy into this notion pretty heavily because we spend lots of our hard-earned dollars on the latest products that successful technological companies offer. We do this because we believe in the purpose of the product, and we also believe in its usefulness—that the product will be useful to our lives in some way. Typically, the company will provide an instruction manual that comes standard with the packaging. If we have any intention of utilizing the product they offer to its fullest capacity, we’ll read the manual. We’ll read it because we believe what the company says about what the product is, what it’s designed to do, and how to get the most use out of it. We believe what the company says because they made the product.

The companies that make good products, that are designed to make our lives easier, are not chiefly motivated out of love. Their chief motivation is to make money. Well God is our Manufacturer! He made us! He’s our Creator, and His chief motivation for doing everything is love. 1 John 4:19 (ESV) affirms, “We love because he first loved us.” God has created patterns that we, as His beloved children, should follow. His patterns are the absolute best, because they are always about His love. We can live a fulfilling life of love if we follow God’s love. He’s the One that has set the pattern and shown us how to love best.

The problem is that we have lots of bad programming, and we are being inundated with bad information daily. Feelings of dissatisfaction set in, and we start to believe that more money, a new relationship, a bigger house, a new car, or a different job is the answer. Or maybe we feel bad and can’t quite figure out why. We just know that something profound is missing in our lives, and the emptiness seems to spill over into everything that we do. It just follows our every move, and we want to live a better life than the one we have.

God said in Jeremiah 29:11(NLT), ““For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.””  In Ephesians 1:11, He tells us that we have received an inheritance because we are united in His Son, Jesus Christ. He also tells us that He chose us in advance according to His plan. God has a plan for the entire universe. Within His plan, is a unique and specialized plan for each of us. We have a part to play in God’s overall plan, and we should never underestimate or minimize its importance.

A big technological company makes plans and we believe in them to such a degree that we buy into not only the company, but we support their products. If we’ll do this for them, we should be overwhelmingly willing to have faith in the Creator’s plan, as well as our purpose in it.

A product without a purpose is not useful. This helps us to understand how important purpose is, and how we can begin to feel empty and not useful when we don’t know our own purpose within the Plan and Will of God; and furthermore, when we don’t know how important it is to God that we fulfill our parts.

The reason that many people feel like something is missing in their lives is because they have forgotten their Maker, never read His manual, and/or are not following His instructions to make the most of what He’s made. We can change this! We can erase the bad patterns of the past and breach the walls of our comfort zones by asking Jesus Christ to take the lead. When it comes to living life, he did it best! His pattern is the path to fulfillment, because he tells us in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life! Recognize that you are made from God’s love. Seek His purpose, and let Him fill your heart, because the love of Christ is forever and always the answer to what is missing in our lives.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.