In chapter 3, I share how “our hearts leak and will always end up empty when we find our worth in anything but who we are in Christ. Our value is not measured by what others think of us—but we surely live like it is, don’t we? It’s almost as though we wake up every morning with an empty jar, like Sam, and walk around holding it out to people or things, hoping they will fill us…”
In today’s video message, I talk about the things we look to and illustrate how we can allow God to fill the empty places in our hearts…
Please click the arrow below to watch.
(Optional) Download my “Message Notes” in a PDF format here or in a MSWord doc here. We want you to just watch and let God speak to your heart the first time, but we also knew some of you will want the notes. I even included blanks for you to fill in. 🙂
UPDATE: It’s been quite a week at our house…a trip to the ER with my mom after a bad fall Sunday, I woke up sick on Tuesday and my son Andrew (14) broke his collar bone that same afternoon. Wednesday we found out I had bronchitis and that Andrew’s break was much worse than we expected. Fortunately, we are doing a good bit better today. God’s kept us close to His promises and provided strength and encouragement through so many of your prayers and notes. THANK YOU!!
Connecting in Community: I’d love to hear your thoughts about this week”s video message and your answers to questions at end of Chapter 3. If you left a comment earlier in the week, let’s talk about questions we hadn’t answered yet. Like 4-7. And how the video message ties into the question about finding our “worth-ship” in Christ.
Just click “share your thoughts” right below this post and do just that – share your thoughts, I love to hear them! And I’ll share mine too.
Discover more from Renee Swope
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
For years (most of my life, if I’m honest), I tried in vain to fill my empty places with friends and their approval. God had to take them away in order to show me that HE WAS ENOUGH! It was a tough and lonely time, but oh the sweetness of realizing that He is sufficient. And now…He has replaced the old friends with new, healthy friendships. He is so good!
Melinda,
I used to fill my empty places with friends too. God showed me that He was my greatest Friend. I appreciate my friends now in a healthy way.
Karen C
I would love to share this with my Bible study class this next Wed. Object lesson and all. But I need to be able to have it in a word or pdf so I can use it exactly as you did. I do not have a way to show the video.
As human beings, it is hard to understand and believe that God loves us unconditionally. We do not experience that on earth with other people. The video is a wonderful way to show the importance of God’s love in our life. Having more than one way to understand His word is instrumental in trusting Him.
Couldn’t agree anymore. And the visuals…wow how helpful!!!! Renee, thank you.
Renee, thanks for the video message. I loved the illustration of how we fill ourselves with “stuff” hoping to find fulfillment. Yep, I do it it also. I have thought to myself “if I get this or do that, THEN I will be all set. I won’t need anything else. ” It is to easy to leave God out of the equation and I know that Satan loves that about me. My favorite quote in chapter 3 which Renee also spoke in the video is this: “Until God’s love is enough, nothing else will be”. So true!!!!
“Satisfy me in the morning with your unfailing love that I may sing for joy and be glad all my days, for I have put my trust in God” (memory scripture practice)
Wonderful video Renee. I know that I have allowed many things to fill my empty places but I thank God that I am now giving Jesus the priority in my life before all those other things. He is the only one that can fill us, fill the voids and all those empty places that we try to use other things to fill. Love you Renee and thank God for your ministry.
Renee, I loved this illustration! It was so powerful on how when we try to fill those places with things other than Christ there are still those empty places. Thank you for this study and this book!
To answer question 3, yes everything seems full and wonderful on the outside; however, my heart is not. I want to trust Got to fill my heart with His words and love. I want to know that that is enough so I will stop searching for meaningless fulfillment and can have peace of heart with a strong and confident heart.
I have my alarm clock tuned to a Christian radio station and I wanted to share that this morning (after hitting the snooze button twice) I mumbled something to God about Him please waking me up with a great song and the next thing I hear (loud and clear!) is “You satisfy the cries of what I’m longing for….” That was the first lyric to the song that woke me up. WOW!
Have a wonderful day sisters!
May our satisfying God fill us to overflowing today!! And may our healing God touch you, Renee, your mom, and your son.
In Christ.
WOW! That was amazing! I have never seen anything like that before what an awesome example of how God can fill our lives with unfailing love! I was just telling my husband that i felt much like the samaritan women always looking for love in all the wrong places. When all i have to do is look to the Lord for his unconditional, unfailing love!
This is a P.S. to what i just wrote: On 8/7/2011 I wrote this in my “Confident Heart” journal that i had already started before this study. “Chapter 3 really hit home for me. The biggest point for me was: “We lose sight of Jesus as our confidence and completion, and we look to other people and things to fill us. “Salvation is a one time decision, But (in bold letters) finding satifaction in Christ and living in the security of His promises is a DAILY process” ( i quoted from the book on the last part) When I re-read what i had written there it surprised me because of what you said in your video!
Thank you Tera.
Yes,Tera He is amazing! keep your heart open to Him and keep your eyes on Him keeping open to Him transforming you and filling you with His love.
You’ll never look for love in the wrong places again.
Love,
Your sister in Christ,
Loretta
Oh Renee,
This is such an on time Word! I love it. It spoke to my heart. As I watched and listened I had visions of several people in my life, interestingly enough all but one were female. The other was my son. I saw my mother and how she “work throug” , or “dealt with ” the untimely & unexpected death of my brother who was only 33 years old, a Viet Nam Vet surviver, and the totally unexpected death of my father .
He was the her whole lile next to us kids, his life partner, his help meet, and , her one true love.
My Mother was out of control trying to “cope” with the losses in her life. Oh how she shopped and purchased things, all sorts of things, jewelry, clothing,shoes, handbags, tools, appliances, kitchenware, etc.. hoping to make the pain go away and heal her empty heart.
Today 30 years since my brothers death and 17 years from my father’s death, she finally gets it. Two years ago I felt an urgency pressing at my heart to lead my mother to the Lord. Since then I minister to her at her home as I can and even over the phone if necessary.
She is pretty much bedridden and house bound. I am a Registered Nurse of 30 years and work full time and I also minister to my Christian co-workers (all female ), and some of my patients, whom are also all female, and then come home and take care of my mother, cook for, wash clothes, shower her, brush her false teeth, etc… everything we do to ourselves, even down to plucking a few chin hairs that we totally laugh about , when I don’t hurt her too much. I try to make jokes here and there, and she totally gets them and comes back with her own. 🙂
More recently she hasn’t been able to get out of the house since she fell and broke her hip, it makes it quite difficult for her to walk and or sit for long periods of time at the hair salon. So guess what I do now? Yup!
You guessed right! I now cut her hair!
Here’s my disclaimer to her: “Ok” I told her, Mom, now you know that I don’t know what I am doing, I am a Nurse, not a hairdresser.” She said :That’s ok,, just get the hair off of my ears and neck”. I thank God that her hair is short and she really can’t tell if I messed up anywhere. :-0 !!
But somehow, someway, amazingly, (I think God gave me some talent and skills I didn’t know abou) her hair turns out cute. My nephew even commented on it! He said he thought it was cute too.
Saturday I even “layered” it! We giggled and she just loves the attention I give her literally from head to toes, mani & pedis and all!
During all these mom times, we talk her life as a young girl in Germany, and her life as a young wife at war times with my dad, her being German and him being an American soldier in Germany during the war, both crazy in love with earch other. There were many other stories of her life up to now.
She said she loves spending time with me because I “totally get her”. And she says she loves how kind, compassionate and gentle spoken I am , something she says my other sisters don’t quite deliver to her like I do and she can’t talk to the boys about the things we talk about, like “A mother’s love, or a wife’s love and how are love is different than a man’s love and how sometimes they just don’t get us..
She always thanks me repeatedly. . But I tell her she doesn’t have to thank me and that it is an honor and my duty to do all that I can for her, it’s the least I can do, and I want to do all I can for her.After all she is my only mother.
I just smile back at her and tell her that I am a reflection of her. I think she liked that when I said it because she looked at me and just nodded her head in agreement.
I tell her that she’s getting back all the love and care that she poured into me all the years. She smiles as tears well up in her green eyes. (my brother that passed away and myself and our mother all look similar and he and I are the only 2 of 6 kids to get our mother’s green eyes.) I love them!! As I sit on her bed at her side, I t hold her warm hand and let her reminence and talk.
She’ll talk about how she tried to mend her broken heart with all the shopping, buying, spending etc… and that she did what she thought would help her, But in retrospect she said it was all short lived. Once she received the items all of the joy was gone, like the air out of a balloon, and she was on to the next thing to help satisfy what she was missing.
She didn’t buy for herself all the time, but for us kids too. For us girls it was mostly the latest kitchen gadget or home appliances. One year we all got the famous “Salad Shooter”, the next year, the tower to freeze dry fruits and or veggies and make your own beef jerky, pots and pans, cake pans, cupcake holders, etc… Well that went on for years.
I love that now as I talk to her about Christ and His love for us and His desires for us, she totally gets it! She sees how no thing or person can replace or fill the emptyness in us other than God Himself.
She is in constant physical pain these days with bone on bone in her left shoulder which she can’t use her left arm at all, and osteoarthritis in her hips and spine , and two old knee replacements with heavy metal knees all which keep her in pain and tears daily, unable to walk without assistance.
She can’t take narcotics as they make her hallucinate, nor can she take NSAIDS, the antiinflammatory medications, because she’s had blood clots to her lungs on two occassions which makes her not a candidate for surgery. So we help her with other methods like Icy Hot,creams, lotions, and ointments, Tylenol, heat, ice. positioning and repositioning, and mainly prayer.
She is grateful for everything we do to help her. She is 85 now.
I am just glad that the Lord didn’t give up on me, so that I could share what I have come to learn about being a Christian and God with my mother.I remind her that I too lost my brother and my dad and my husband through a divorce, but nevertheless, I still miss them and I hurt too at times.
I remind her that I miss them too and still think about them and it’s ok to cry and miss them, but that we are still here today , and we must find the joy in being here. There are obviously things God still has us for to do or receive while we are here, and we need to be mindful of that as well.
We pray continually for physical, psychological, emotional, physiologically, relationship, and spiritual restoration and healing.
Oh, and God has delivered her from her trying to fill the pain with “things” and “people pleasing” as He Himself is filling her daily! It’s been a couple of years now! I love her transformation.
To God be the Glory forever~~
I am going to look into getting the Internet at her place so that I can share the videos here with her (she’ll ove this one) and maybe if she’s up to it, she can participate in the Bible Studies as well.
PS: I am so sorry this was so long. I just wanted to give God all the Glory. We can’t do it alone! He tells us that apart from Him, we can do nothing. That means “No Thing”.
We need to accept that come to terms with it, and let go., and let God deliver us and heal us. He will.
May God Continue to Bless You, Your Family, and Your Ministry
Love in the Name of Christ,
Loretta
What an awesome “testimony” Loretta. 🙂
i’m literally speechless and in awe of what does!
Thank you, it is ALL God!!
Your sister in Christ,
Loretta
What a story Loetta I loved it GOD can do amazing things for us if we allow Him to. GOD bless
Thank you Caroline,
Yes, God is sooooooo amazing!! He totally continues to surprise me.
Your Sister in Christ,
Loretta
Yesterday was just awful for me. I was down and couldnt see the way up my jar is filled with all the wrong things trying for that unconditional love that I long for. If it hadnt been for my biblestudy girls, I would still be down. Even though your video was not out when all this was happening the girls, brought all of this up. Now mind you I am a new Christian, and sometimes not to trusting of what the Lord can do and as I felt sorry for myseil that my life was in crisis and my husband and i were fighting again, I forgot that God is the only one that could fill me. the girls got me thru yesterday reminding me of just what you have and today the reinforcement of your video just brings tears of joy down my face. I am loved, He is here, and He is telling me this thru you and thru my studies and thru my girls. Thank you so much Renee the message is coming out clearer all the time!
What an incredible video Renee. You really hit the ball out of the park with this video. I will be watching it over and over because I really think the message comes in loud and clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing your video! The visuals really helped drive the point home. I have struggled a lot with being a people pleaser over the years and letting that influence my thoughts, actions, and decisions. I believe that is what God is showing me in this chapter. I feel so uncomfortable in social situations because I care too much what people think, and I don’t feel like I have a lot to offer… I know that if I can continue to grow in the area of allowing God to fill my heart instead of things, my life will never be the same. I am definitely a work in progress!! I hope you and Andrew are feeling better soon!
Thank you for sharing this with us. I was at Bible study this evening and we were talking about God’s omniscient (sp?) how he knows everything even before we were born. It kind of goes with this chapter how we are looking for something to fill everything and for me I think it has some to do with what I think of my self and what others think. God doesn’t have to think about us or have an opinion. He already knew what I was going to do today before I even went to bed last night. Nothing is a surprise to him and nothing is impossible for him to help us through. It was amazing how the two went together. It just kind of clicked for me tonight. Now I have to really believe and move it to my heart and ask God to work on the struggling areas in my life. Thanks for sharing your life with us. I hope Andrew is doing well and you are feeling better.
Thanks again!
Thank you so much for that message. It caught me right in the heart. It has been a pleasure following you in this study. There are so many things I can relate to. I have been struggling with so any things and this message brought it to where I could feel the truth in what you are saying. I thank you for sharing your wonderful gift from God. you are a true Blessing.
God Bless You!
Debra
this video teaching just stirred inside me the confidence that thru Christ I can be who He has called me to be because in Him alone is the ability to make us who we can truly be for the upbuilding of His Kingdom. Thank you so much Renee.
To answer the questions on Chapter 3
#1 I am not sure I have done anything really crazy for love. I love my kids like crazy!!
#2 I am wondering what it would like to find a soulmate – and making a better decision in marriage than the first time, but really for my girls. I feel incomplete sometimes being single. On the other hand it is so nice not to feel so tied in knots like I did while I was married. I also need to look to the future and am concerned how I will be able to take care of my girls on my own. It is all up to me now. I no longer look to people to fill me up as I feel so hurt and disappointed with some previous relationships. I really depend on God to fill me up. I am so blessed when I look back and see how God has been there and spoken to my heart at my lowest times.
#3 When I am in church or somewhere and see a couple with their children I feel alone sometimes. But then I sense that God himself is with me and he will help my as I raise my girls and provide for them.
Thank you Renee – loved the visuals! Needed this reminder to be filled by God’s love – his Holy Spirit – to put my eyes on him and my trust in him. I’m also reminded to the song my mom used to sing…”Fill my cup Lord..and make me whole again….” thank you,
Such a good reminder that only God has unfailing love. I have learned to lean on God especially in the last couple of years as I have just gone through a difficult divorce. I have felt unloved or loved conditionally by most people in my life. I want to experience God’s love in a way that fills me up.
Thank you for the video message. Great illustration of him filling us and satisfying us with His Love.