Filling The Emptiness

Filling the Emptiness

Bible Reading: Luke 8:35-39

We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Some of us enter recovery because of the intervention of those who love us. We are confronted and persuaded to break from our addiction. Perhaps, we have received spiritual help and been delivered from demonic influences as well. Intervention can be a very helpful starting place but we cannot afford to stop there.

With the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs, Jesus came into his territory and confronted him. There is no record that the man was seeking help before this “intervention.” After the encounter, the crowd “saw the man . . . sitting at Jesus’ feet, fully clothed and perfectly sane” (Luke 8:35).

Most of us would stop right there, but if we did, we would probably end up in worse shape than before. Jesus explains, “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before” (Luke 11:24-26).

If we are to remain free, we must go beyond just accepting deliverance. It’s not enough to just let Christ clean us up. We must use our season of sobriety to go back and deal with filling up the empty, broken places in our hearts and lives.

Recovery is a beginning of restoration; but to be in recovery, we need to continue what we begin.