Well,
welcome back again to another podcast of Struggling Well. We're glad that you've joined us and You know, one of the things, Suzi, that we all have in common, now they're different ones, but we have this idea in common of expectations. I
I do not, Jimmy. I do not. When the dishes are piled 9 ft high in the sink, I have no expectations that you're going to take care of that. I don't. I just so lied.
I know you did. and but so then when expectations, whatever they may be, and they vary from person to person, but we all have them. When expectations aren't met, then it feels like there's something missing in our life. And how do we how do we handle when it feels like something is missing?
And you know, I told you this the other day, babe. I was having a hard time getting asleep. And as I was laying there and thinking about the podcast and thinking just about life in general, the phrase kept coming to me, something's missing. And I was like, Lord, what do you mean by that? What are you trying to tell me? What importance does this have? and it's not like I heard an audible voice. I didn't, but it kept reverberating in my heart because I think there's a couple of ways that we can say something's missing. I would say that there is this something's missing in my life and I'm going to do whatever I can to fill that hole. And we, it seems like in the last few months, we've seen that a lot in marital relationships where one of the spouses is, saying something's missing in our marriage. And, Oftenimes when that's the case, not all the time, but enough times that it's notable. When people say that, often times that leads them to look for something to fill in that gap
or someone
or someone you know, all of a sudden, you know, you are thinking, well, maybe if I were married to someone else, something's missing in my marriage. What happened to the spark we had when we first got married? Something's missing. Or even with our health, There's so much information out there about different ways to approach and I know from and I shared with you this with you last week about my autoimmune is there are 100 billion pathways to autoimmune deficiency and how to deal with them. Something's missing. And so we will look for a vitamin, a cure, a doctor, whatever to help us. And it happens in ways that I wish it didn't. But we look for something kind of like a puzzle. I don't know. We talked about this last night,
right?
So, you know, you get We have a couple of daughters and a son-in-law that love to puzzle. And I even saying that word puzzles me. Like, who would want to do that? I don't know. But they like to sit with a box full of 500, 5, 000, whatever crazy number it is, little pieces, and then put them all together. I think that's ridiculous or insane. Sorry kids, but it's crazy. Makes me nuts. So, what we have seen sometimes is that one of the pieces of the puzzle will have either not been contained in the actual box or it had fallen off because either the dog got it, the kids got it, whatever. And I think when I talk about something missing and us trying to fill that hole in a way that doesn't work is like, okay, there's that one piece missing and you want to go crazy. I got to fill this to make a complete puzzle. So, you take out a piece of cardboard or paper or whatever and you try to trace the outline of that piece. to put it in that gap. It might somewhat fill the gap, but it's not what it's supposed to be.
Yeah. So, so when it comes to things that are missing in our lives, what I think what we're saying is there's two avenues we take,
right?
One is we figure out a way to do it on our own,
right?
Which or we turn to the Lord
to fill that. And so in the in Jeremiah second chapter. Jeremiah says this, "For my people, God speaking, have committed two evils. They have forsaken me." So there's the one pathway you choose not to go down the fountain of living water. So there's something there that God says, "I'll give you and they've heed for themselves or they've made for themselves brokenists that can hold no water." And so to me, that's that picture of if I choose the path of filling what's missing in my life, By ignoring God and what he offers and his design for what he says will bring to me a joy in my life. I'm putting water in a picture that's broken. It can't hold any water. It's going to run out.
Do you have any thoughts about why people not people why we don't let him fill those empty spaces? I mean what do we not trust him? Do we don't believe him? What?
Well, I think it I think it is I think it is an issue of trust. I think It is the basic thing that man has sinned from the very beginning. They we think we have a better plan than he does.
Yeah.
We think we have a better way of doing things.
You know, and you go all the way back to the garden and Adam and Eve and Satan raises the question, did God really say
Yeah.
And so it's the doubt that the enemy puts into our minds that God really isn't going to do what he says he's going to do or he will do what he says he's going to do. But we've got a better way to do it. and I think it's subtle. It's not always an obvious thing, but we can slowly go and forsake him, the fountain of living water. Go back to what we talked about last week from Isaiah 55 and how the chapter begins. And again, Isaiah says this, "Come everyone who thirsts." Well, there's that sense of thirst. Something's missing. come to the waters. He who has no money, come and buy and eat. So, Again, there's something's missing. And the invitation to come and come incline your ear and choose and come to me, God says, "Hear that your soul may live."
That makes me think of the woman at the well, which I think I refer to her a lot. And maybe it's because I can so identify with her. I mean, talk she was thirsty. She was a thirsty woman. And in her case, she it looks like from the text that so she sought the company of men. to make her feel less thirsty. And Jesus in his gentle, compassionate, merciful way points out, you've had five and you're still thirsty.
Yeah. And the one you're with isn't even your husband,
right?
So,
and so that I mean, that's the pattern of our human sin is that we're thirsty and we go somewhere else to get our thirst quenched.
Yeah. And so it's like putting water into a broken water pot. It will hold the water. Eventually, it may not all run out right away, but eventually it will run out. It because it won't hold the water, right?
It won't quench the thirst. And the flip to that in Isaiah is Jesus saying, "If you are thirsty, come to the waters.
He if you don't have any money, that's all right. Come and eat
because what he offers is life."
And when he says in Isaiah 55:6, he says, "Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him while he's near." So that part right there is we're looking for that puzzle piece,
right?
And we can't find it. So, we use a fraudulent piece to fit that puzzle, but it will never be the completed puzzle. And so, without him, without seeking him, which he says, you if you look for me, you'll find me, right?
And I mean, creation just screams of it. so many things I think just scream of God's existence, but it's that matter of seek him and we'll find it. And there's a part I can feel it Right now in my heart I feel like a squeeze. I don't think I'm having a heart attack. I feel a heart emotional heart squeeze which is oh God help me seek you.
Right? And it's not it's it you know my salvation when I came to know Christ as my savior was a one-time event. It doesn't have to be repeated. It happened. It's I'm sealed with the Holy Spirit. But what we're talking about the is the day by day. It needs to be repeated constantly. So we're both now in our 70s and we've walked with the Lord for many many years and it still is a struggle to seek him to come to him to have our qu our thirsts quenched and our souls satisfied with the food that he provides
and taking that further as people who say we follow Christ we have the water we have the food that he provides and there's a world out there of people that are begging for their thirst to be quenched.
Yeah. And so it's a great place for us to be in those of you who are listening who follow Christ to pres present the gospel to present Jesus in a way that invites people to come.
Yeah.
And it invites them to come into something that they're longing for in their life that they're thirsting for that they hunger for that they're missing that they'll never find satisfied in this world the way the world offers it. So
thanks for your thoughts babe. I appreciate that.
Yeah. And yours as well. And a shout out this week
to
Lana. Lana and
listens to us up in the mountains.
And then
and maybe it's Lana, I don't remember. So either way, Lana or Lana, you know who you are.
And then a good friend who served with me for many years when I was pastoring a church who has gone through his own journeys of struggle physically and is an amazing testimony. to God's faithfulness. And that's why I've got good Tim Cox. And so, thank you for listening. Hope you're encouraged today. And if you know him, be sure to let him know he's a special man. Have a great week.