An Empty Person

“He feeds on ashes. His deceived mind has led him astray, and he cannot rescue himself, or say, ‘Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?’” (Isa. 44:20).

While we know of individuals who have little of this life’s possessions, or of its prestige, or even the necessities to exist, for others, there is more of everything, and everything tends to be bigger and better; yet amid the fullness of prosperity there lives multitudes of empty people. Many of the extremes of our age are merely efforts to find some meaning for life. Isaiah says of those who worship idols are following after that which is empty, and in doing so become empty people; what about the idolatry modern life causes people to pursue?

A “this life only” philosophy offers a superficial view of life. The phrase, “he feeds on ashes” is a proverbial saying used to refer to that which has no purpose. To feed on ashes means taking a wrong turn somewhere down the path of life and finding oneself following a very artificial way of life. Any view of life that doesn’t include God presents a tragic distortion. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

A “this life only” philosophy is a commitment to a lie. The empty person’s basic fault is not a lack of commitment; it’s a commitment to what is not true. He does not seem able to say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” The empty person faces the struggles and trials of life with nothing more than a lie in his hand, a lie which somehow believes everything will work out all right (Rev. 3:15-17). The bad news is that, in the end, a life based on all the lies of the world will not work out all right; nothing works out all right apart from God. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

The empty person sees life as an end in itself, but it is not so; life is a battle to determine who, or what, to serve in God’s eternal kingdom. The empty person seeks only to dodge danger and stay alive. The wise person commits himself to the service of the eternal God and loses himself in the life it calls one to live; it’s in this very experience that emptiness fades away and fullness becomes a reality. “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”

Robert