EMPTINESS. What is the meaning of this word? What do you think is the remedy for this? Is being with people or having a relationship a solution for this? These are the questions that I kept on asking these past few years. Most of my life, I have felt lonely and empty like there is a piece that is missing inside of me. Even though I have a lot of friends and I grew up in a loving family, still the feeling of emptiness inside of me prevails.

My usual response to this emptiness is to rush in to fill up the void, to replenish what is missing. That is why I usually seek companionship, or just eat and drink a lot, often to excess, just to fill the void. But all of this changed when I joined the Heartbeat for Christ Conference. This event was a life changing experience for me, it made me realize so many things in my life. Through this conference, I was able to find out that missing piece inside of me that makes me empty and that is my lack of relationship with God.

All my life, I really thought that I’m a very religious person because I always see to it that I go to church once a week. But I was wrong, because just believing in the existence of God is not enough. According to Matthew 15:8,9: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men”.

When we say that we have faith in God but our hearts are still away from him, our worship means nothing. It is not enough to act religious or even study the bible. Our actions and attitudes must be sincere and we should have true faith and genuine relationship with God. True faith is not just believing that there is God, it should be able to transform our conduct as well as our thoughts. It is a commitment and submission of our whole self to God Almighty.

These realizations after the conference made me grow spiritually and closer to God. With the guidance of the bible and the prayers of my family and friends, the emptiness inside of me is now getting filled with God’s unconditional love.

“Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you’ll be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” - Ephesians 3:17-19