Some days my written words come easily. Other days I need to show and tell you what’s on my heart. Today is one of those days.
Please {like pretty please even if you don’t normally watch video posts} click the arrow below to “hear” today’s message from my heart to yours. I don’t want another day to go by without you knowing this…
{Are you a note-taker? If so, I created “Video Message Notes” in a PDF and in MSWord just for you. Even included blanks to fill in. 🙂
Today’s Giveaway:
Two friends of mine who serve behind the scenes and are part of our online study, [thank you Donna & Veronica] have donated copies of my book to giveaway today. Together we created 5 gift packs for 5 of you. Each one includes a copy of my book, A Confident Heart {for you or a friend?} and my testimony/teaching message on CD, Letting God Fill My Empty Places.
Let’s Connect {and how to enter today’s drawing}:
I’d love to hear your thoughts about today’s message… and this is an easy way to enter today’s giveaway too. Just click “share your thoughts” right below this post and do just that – share your thoughts. {I love to read them! And pray over you when I do.} I’ll be there reading and sharing my heart with you too.
For More Daily Encouragement join my Confident Heart Facebook page.
Receive My Posts in Your Inbox
If you aren’t already a subscriber, sign up in my right sidebar where it says “Receive Email Updates” — and you won’t miss a thing! I’ve got more giveaways, short video messages and lots of encouraging posts I’m working on for the coming weeks.
Discover more from Renee Swope
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wow Renee! That was a visual that helps me realize that maybe i’ve slipped a little and was starting to use food to fill in those little voids. I will continue to seek God to build yet a stronger relationship with him so that i can feel fulfilled. It’s those self doubts that continue to get the upper hand! God will prevail. Thank you for helping me see that today! God bless!
As a widow, I find I have a lot of empty spaces that ache. I talk to God alot but I think your message tells me something I’ve longed to hear. Maybe I need to spend more time listening and learning to just let Him fill my empty spaces. It already sounds more peaceful.
As tears sting my eyes, I wonder why reading something that we already have heard brings such emotion. Even after seeing the object lesson to your message today, there should be no reason that we continue to take the living water that only Christ can provide for granted. We have experienced the joy of knowing that we are completely His and are unconditionally love by our Lord and our God, yet the tangible things, the verbal affirmations seems more desirable. It is oh so important that we fully embrace God’s love with every ounce of our being and hold on to Hebrews 11:1 where there is truly evidence of things not seen. The Living Water takes away the thirst for more of nothing and gives us the desire for the Bread of Life that is indeed more filling.
Jesus’ cup overflows with love for us and he gives i freely to us. We fill our vessels with worldly “stuff”. If we empty our cups of worldy things, we then would have room to fill it with HIM.
Renee, thank you so much for this post. Unfortunately, this is something I need to be reminded of constantly. I hope and pray and I can finally give my heart, my whole heart, to Jesus and let Him fill the empty spaces.
Thank-you for this Bible Study. it has come at a perfect time in my life. I look forward to hearing this message when I get to our library. We have dial-up on our home computer so we can’t watch videos. However, judging by some of the comments, I know I am going to like the message. Thank-you for sharing your life and wisdom with the rest of us.
I am so glad I found(God directed me too this ministry. I am amazed at how much I relate to most all the topics. I find it so easy to fill my jar/schedule with things that detract from my real needs and purpose. It is so easy as a wife and mother to do that and then wonder why I feel so inept at my performance. Thank you for your real life open & honest ministry, its nice to know we are all in this together.
Thank you for this. What my heart needed today. We are all on a journey, i can totally relate to your visual with the jar and looking for fulfillment. It was beautiful with the word “GRACE” in the background. I’m working on my timeline of life, it’s a painful process going back to some of those places but i know God wants to shine His light in the darkness of my past and set me free. God Bless you!
Wow, Renee I pray that you know how much you changed my perspective today. Only through God was He able to use your voice to tell me things I really needed to hear. You see I have been searching for the unconditional love that I have wanted since I was a small girl with no Daddy, now at 29 and 5 children of my own, I cannot love or be loved unconditional because I do not know what that kind of love looks like. I was admitted into a hospital two weeks ago for suicide attempt, I had given up on life and my constant longing for love. After 5 days they released me but only to come home to a home that had not changed, I did not feel any more loved that night than I had 5 days prior. Now I am taking one step at a time moving past the hurt toward realizing the unconditional love that God gives me as one of His children, and the love my children desperately need for me to give them.
Thank you Renee for being obedient to the works God has placed on your heart, for your sharing IS making a difference in His Kingdom.
In Agape Love,
Jennifer
So touched by your note. Thank you for sharing such life-giving and encouraging words. Praying about writing a devotion book based on my book and your words brought sweet affirmation today!
As much as God radiates from your life through what you say and write (and how you live) I know, if it is His will, that a devotion book would be a huge blessing for so many. Just wanted to share that when I read your comment.
Thank you so very much, Renee. This message has been repeated in my life almost daily as I am going through The Lord’s Table. I use food to try to fill those empty spaces, and, what a surprise! – It doesn’t work! I have used relationships with friends, my husband, and even my kids at times to try to fill those empty spaces as well. I have even used serving in various ministries to try to fill up the emptiness. Thank you for this reminder that only He can truly satisfy all the longings of our heart and fill those empty spaces.
I have spent most of my life searching for empty promises to fill my heart and the void in my life.
I thank God that He never gave up on me but through personal tribulation and sin I was lead back to Him and I know without a doubt that only He can fill my heart ,soul and mind with “the peace which surpasses all understanding”…I love the Lord with all my heart and am so thankful that I see the truth of what His Love can offer me that wordly possesssions can never do. Thank you for your wise illustration of empty promises.
You are a blessing to so many out there!
I spent most of my life searching too and just lost all hope when all those people and things wouldn’t fill me up. I:m so thankful that when we put our hope in HIM we are made complete — filled and able to spill. Praying He drenches you with His love and grace today!
funny how God works. I decided to print the message notes and was so surprised to see you called the woman Sam, (my initials) i say God really wants me to hear this today
SAM
🙂 Yes, He most certainly does. I love that name!
Your words spoke right to my heart today. God has been whispering to my spirit that HE is my friend and I can get everything my soul longs for from Him. I only need to seek Him in His Word. Thank you for sharing!
Renee, i really loved seeing you talk for the first time. I started reading your book a Confident heart a while back and just can’t seem to get into it. the devil has been on me so much in my life and at present it seems he is winning. I would love to win your othher book. please pray for me that god will show me my purpose in life and I will ignore the devil and these times of depression. God bless you and I look forward to more videos!!
Thank you Renee for your wonderful illustration of how things cannot fill our emply places. I cannot wait to read your book A Confident Heart. I have heard so many good things about how this book has spoken to so many lives.
Thanks so much Renee! What a wonderful object lesson to really visualize all the “things” that we fill our lives and hearts with that just don’t fulfill us. How freeing it is to allow God to fill those empty places and THEN be able to add others back as HE leads in His time. I have shared your message with my college age daughter. I hope and pray that she can learn this now while young and not walk the same path as her mother for all these years. I pray that God continues to use you in a mighty way to touch the lives of so many who need to hear! God bless you!
Thanks Renee, I love the illustration. This message and chapter has learnt me so much. I am guilty of filling my emptiness with earthly things. Now I am filling my emptiness with God’s love, let Him filll my emptiness. The Lord has spoke to me in this part of my life. I felt the weight coming of my shoulders. I love this study. Thank you.
Thank You so much for that Renee. This is definitely a struggle for me. I am always looking for everything around me to fulfill my empty places, when God is waiting for me to look to him to be fulfilled. This message is very encouraging. I am so grateful that we have a God that is so faithful even when we aren’t. He is such an Awesome God!!
While doing my quiet time this morning, this message and something I am dealing with right now absolutely collided with each other! While trying to fulfill a homeless child’s basic needs, I volunteered to take her shopping. We did this, not only because it is Christ like, but also because it hits close to home for my spouse. There seemed to be no question we would contribute to this cause in some way, whether monetarily or by putting out info on Facebook for all my mom friends who are cleaning out their daughters’ closets and collecting things for this girl. Everything was fine until the person who started asking for help put out a message on Facebook thanking everyone BUT me for their help with the situation. And as non-Christ-like as it was, I felt a twinge of hurt because of not being recognized. I felt so much guilt for that and asked God to cleanse my heart of whatever was making me feel left out. Then I opened up my email and saw my daily message from Proverbs 31 Ministries. Thank you God for giving me this word at absolutely the instant I needed it!! What He reveals, He will heal. I am still a work in progress but isn’t it amazing that there are NO coincidences when it comes to God and his work in us?
For years I have struggled with thinking my cistern would be filled by physical beauty.
Just this weekend, God was so kind to reveal to me how He allowed me to struggle in that pursuit a bit so that I could see for myself it would never fill the deep desire in my heart. Had he given me the desire I thought would have filled up those empty spaces, I would have been disappointed. But, in His goodness He wanted me to actually see for myself the emptiness that comes with vanity. I came accross a woman who looked on the outside, the very way I desired to look. She had beautiful clothes and hair. She had an incredibly fit body, but her soul was empty. Those things I so badly wanted, she had. And yet, she wasn’t happy. I am happy God allowed me to see this. He showed me that my happiness and joy can only be found in HIm. This was a life changing moment for me after YEARS of battling this area of my life. I am so glad to be free of this.
I am reading chapter 7 of Confident Heart now and I recommend the book to every woman I meet. As Director of our local Pregnancy Care Center, I hope to add it as a resource for the women who visit us who struggle in their own pursuit of validation and acceptance in empty cisterns.
Thanks Renee for your candor in Confident Heart. God is using it to heal me of so much. And I believe He will use it to heal many more.
Jennifer