The Hole in Our Hearts

Dannah Gresh: Have you been looking to something to complete what’s missing in your heart? Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I had to learn the hard way, and I've had to keep learning, that things and people other than Jesus cannot fill the empty places of my heart. They can't. They will all disappoint. Things can be burned, they can be stolen, they can be lost. People die, they fail, they move away. If I'm looking to people or things to satisfy me, I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of Seeking Him, for May 30, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

God gives us food to satisfy our physical hunger, but sometimes we eat not because we're physically hungry, but because we have an emotional need. Have you been there? Why do we do that? Nancy is going to give us some insight in the classic series “Satisfying Our Thirst.” She recorded this in the early 2000s, but the truths in it are just as relevant today.

We’ve been focusing on John chapter 4 where the Samaritan woman met Jesus at the well. Let me read a part of that to jump back in. Starting in verse 7:

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

Then, skipping ahead to verse 13: Jesus said,

“Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.” (John 4:7–10, 13–14 CSB)

Here’s Nancy to begin today’s message.

Nancy: It was the French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who said many years ago that there is a God-shaped vacuum inside every one of our hearts. It's a huge hole, it's the size of God. Pascal said that hole within us cannot be filled by any created thing but only by God the Creator. The hole in our hearts, the thirst in our hearts, the hunger in our hearts is the size and shape of God.

We're all thirsty, we're all hungry. But we've tried to satisfy our thirst in all the wrong places. Our thirst really is for God. He is the One we're longing for and that's why the psalmist said, "My soul is thirsty for you, O God"(Psalm 63:1). The problem is that we try to satisfy our thirst with things and places and people and circumstances other than God Himself. We've said that if we want to get our thirst satisfied, we need to first come to the place where we admit that we're thirsty.

For the last week and a half we've been looking at the woman at the well who came to Jesus in the town of Samaria. Jesus led that woman through a conversation to help her realize that she had a need that was deeper and greater than her need for water, which was why she came to the well in the first place.

But He wanted her to see that she had internal longings for which she had never found satisfaction because she had been looking in all the wrong places. She had to come to the place where she said she was thirsty, she was needy. We've said that if we're going to get our thirst satisfied, we have to come to the place where we acknowledge that we are thirsty and that we have an empty place in our heart that cannot be satisfied by this world.

We've also said that we have to then identify the wells we've been going to in an attempt to get our needs met. What are the things we've been looking to, to satisfy our thirst? I know a lot about those wells myself. I would say that the three top wells that I have found myself turning to are ones that I think are not unusual. I think there are probably others in this room who share these wells in common.

One of the things I often find myself turning to is food. This has been a huge struggle for me and I think it all goes back to Genesis chapter three (Gen. 3:6) with the woman there in the Garden. What was the first sin? It was the sin of eating something God said not to eat thinking it would satisfy a need she had in her heart that God intended to satisfy in a different way.

Ultimately, all sin is trying to get legitimate needs met in ways that God has said are not legitimate. The need is legitimate, but the way we try to get it met is outside of God's boundaries. I think the fact that Eve struggled with this issue of eating is perhaps one explanation for why so many of us as women look to food to satisfy us in ways that are not physical. We're eating not because we're hungry. For some it's not eating, for some it's not eating that is the well. We're really trying to meet emotional and spiritual needs from deep within. That has been a big well for me.

Another well for me has been looking for approval and affirmation and praise from other people. I'm a quintessential first-born child, first born of seven. I'm one of those pleasers. I want to do everything right. I'm one of the most compliant students a teacher could ever have had in the school classrooms as I was growing up. I thought I was the teachers' favorite because I loved studying; I loved teachers.

Some of this was a deeply rooted drive to fulfill longings for approval so where human being became for me, idols—the approval of authorities, the approval of people I wanted to influence and impress. That became for me a well. I find myself, to this day, having to guard against this idol of my heart. To look to people I respect to affirm that I'm doing well.

There is another related well for me and it's one I think most of us as women wrestle with. It's the matter of relationships—looking for friendship, companionship, people to keep us from being lonely. What we're really saying is, "There is a hole in my heart and this person can fill that hole." So we work to get close to people, we work to get them into our lives, but we find out the hole is bigger than that person. The hole is bigger than all our friends and family members combined. They cannot satisfy. So as we're seeking to get our thirst satisfied one of the things we have to realize is the utter futility of seeking to fulfill our thirst in anything or anyone other than Jesus. It won't work. The Lord has worked a lot in my life to try and get me to open my clasped hands that were holding so tightly to some of these human idols in my life.

I think for me the real turning point in this matter of wells and where I get my thirst satisfied happened years ago when in the course of several months I lost, through different series of circumstances, three of the closest people in my life. One of them died. One was a widow who remarried and moved away and the other through another series of circumstances was taken geographically out of my life. If you had asked me prior to that point, "Are you a 'giver' or a 'taker' in relationships?" I would have said, "I think I'm a giver." I could have pointed you to lots of ways that I was giving in these relationships.

But when those people were removed from my life, I found myself devastated. My world just fell apart, and I realized I had been looking to these and other people to meet needs in my life. And I was not a giver as much as I was a taker. I was using people to fill a place in my life that was meant for God Himself. They had become idols in my life. I was worshiping them. I was looking to them to satisfy me.

When they were taken away I found that I was so insecure. I had nothing left to hold on to. I had to learn the hard way, and I've had to keep learning, that things and people other than Jesus cannot fill the empty places of my heart. They can't. They will all disappoint. Things can be burned, they can be stolen, they can be lost. People die, they fail, they move away. If I'm looking to people or things to satisfy me, I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

 

At that point I confessed, "Oh, Lord, I see that I have been an idolater. I've looked to people to fill those empty spaces of my heart." I repented. I said, "Lord, please help me never to look to anything or anyone other than you ultimately to be my fountain of life." I've asked the Lord to remind me (He has been so faithful to do this) when I get to that point again where I'm looking to people to fill a space that God intended to fill Himself.

Maybe you're sitting there thinking, Well don't you have any friends anymore? Do you know what? I have more friends and more healthy friendships now than I ever did back then. You know why? Because I'm not in those relationships to get but to give. God has freed me up to really love other people.

Now do I do this perfectly? No. But God has made a major change of focus and thinking in my life to where I realize I'm in these relationships to be a lover, to be a servant, to be a giver. So if that person dies or moves away or fails in some way, I can still love. I'm not looking to that person to meet my needs. What I'm doing is drinking deeply from the fountain of living waters, from Christ Himself. As He fills my cup, then there's overflow for me to give out to others.

You know one of the things God taught me through this period of time was that disappointment and loneliness and loss are actually a blessing. You might not have finished the sentence that way if I had asked you to fill in that blank. Disappointment and loneliness and loss...a blessing? But I came to see that they really are. You know why? Because they forced me to look upward to get my needs met.

Deuteronomy 8:3 says that God allowed His people to go hungry so that they would find out that it's the Word of God that truly and lastingly satisfies, and they would become detached from the things of this world and their hearts would become more attached to heaven. The psalmist said it this way in Psalm 142:

I looked on my right hand;
and beheld that there was no man that would know me.
Refuge failed me.
No man cared for my soul.
I cried unto you, O Lord.
I said you are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. (vv. 4–5)

Someone has said that you'll never know that Christ is all you need until He's all you have. When He's all you have, you'll find out He really is all you need.

So are you facing some disappointment in your life? Some loss of friendship? Maybe you've just moved to the area and you've left behind children—I don't mean little children but grown children. Or you've left behind close friends you've had for many years, and you're now in a new situation.

Maybe it's your husband who has disappointed you. Not only has he not met your expectations, but maybe he has not proved to be a fit husband at all. Maybe it's a pastor or Christian leader who disappointed you. A counselor, someone you expected more from and then you found out they had feet of clay.

Maybe there has been loss. I heard today from a woman who's been coming to these sessions, and she just miscarried a baby over the last week. That's a loss—a great loss. Disappointment, loneliness, and loss can become a blessing if I will allow the disappointment and the loss to cause me to look upward to meet my needs; to say, "Oh, Lord, whom have I in heaven but You? And on earth there is nothing and no one I desire besides you."

So would you right this moment say, "Thank You, Lord. Thank You for the loneliness. Thank You for the loss. Thank You for the disappointment. Because in having these things taken out of my hands, I'm now forced to turn to You to meet my needs in a way that no one and nothing else could ever have done anyway." It's in His mercy and His love that God pries loose from our hands those things and people we've been looking to, to satisfy us so that He can fill us with Himself.

Thank You, Father, for the treasure, the riches that we have in You. Forgive us, forgive me for so often looking to experiences, things, circumstances, and people to satisfy the deepest longings of my heart. Forgive me of my idolatry. Thank You for giving the gift of repentance. Thank You for those experiences that caused me to turn to You in a whole new way and freed me up to enjoy the blessings You bring into my life . . . and not to look to them to fill my cup. Thank You for the incredible way that You do fill me up with Yourself. I thank You, in Jesus' name, amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth pointing us to the only satisfaction for our souls—Jesus Himself.

We first aired this message on Revive Our Hearts over twenty years ago, but the truth of God’s Word never changes. Women everywhere are still searching for satisfaction, and we need that reminder to turn to Jesus to be everything we need.

Nancy mentioned that she’s often tempted to turn to food for satisfaction. We know from the Bible that food is a good gift from God, but it also can become an idol.

Erin Davis writes about these two sides of food in her book Fasting and Feasting. She devoted a whole season of The Deep Well podcast to this topic. The Deep Well is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family and it features the teaching of Erin Davis.

Bethany Beal joined Erin as co-host for the season "Fasting and Feasting." We’re going to hear part of their conversation on how food can be a gift . . . and how it can tempt us toward idolatry.

Bethany Beal: Okay, we have to go deep here, because I know that as we’re listening, you were pretty open and honest, but for a lot of us it brought up different feelings. So, I want to know, for you, how has food been a source of shame in your own life? Would you be willing to be super honest with us?

Erin: Always. Yes, I had a full-blown eating disorder in college, so to be on a podcast talking about the beauty of food is just further evidence that I’m a trophy of God’s grace. I was rail thin—unrecognizable to the person I am now, to be honest. But food absolutely controlled me all day, every day. Food was not a blessing; food was the enemy. I had to work all the time to keep food from me in order to stay that thin.

People did notice. In the height of that eating disorder, I had several people—my mom and some people from church—that came to me and said, “Are you okay? You’re really thin.” I said more than once to wise, godly people, “There’s no such thing as too thin.” I absolutely believed that to be true.

Bethany: Wow!

Erin: If you believe there’s no such thing as too thin, then food is not evidence of God’s love for you. You have to combat it. So, I’ve come such a long way since then, but that’s not even that far in the past. I mean, I think those chains are generational for many of us.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin:  I watched my mom diet. I watched my grandma diet, my aunts diet. I think we just pass on this relationship with food that is way more fear-based than blessing-based.

It’s not even all in my past. I mean, there are definitely still times when my relationship with food feels strained, and it also is an area where I do need self-control. What I’m not saying is, “Eat the whole pan of cinnamon rolls, because God gave those to you!” That’s not what we see in Scripture. So, like every other area of our lives, it takes walking in the Spirit, but He does give freedom.

Bethany: I want to know, what was the specific moment where the chains fell off for you in your relationship with food?

Erin: Well, it is the same pattern for all of my life. I married my husband after that stint in college, was still very thin, was still really struggling with food. My husband was a youth pastor, and there was a girl in the youth group that said, “I would really love to know how to feel better about myself and my body.”

So for her sake—not for my own—I opened my Bible and started to see these themes, some of which we’re talking about in this series, and chains did fall off. I mean, that’s what the Bible does. It is a chain-breaker. Jesus, through His Word, is a chain-breaker. I started to have a really redeemed view of food and everything that comes with it.

Now, there wasn’t this dramatic moment where everything changed. It’s been week after week, day after day, year after year of choosing to, first of all, look at God’s Word for the authority on this, and second of all, believe what He says and then implement it. I really do feel like the Lord’s broken many chains—and probably has more chains to break, but He does it through His Word.

Bethany: I love that. It’s so nice, because we don’t have to have the strength in and of ourselves.

Erin: We don’t!

Bethany: God has the strength for us, which is incredible, because this can be so hard to talk about. It’s amazing that we’re having these conversations, because it’s sometimes hard to know where to go.

I know for a lot of us, we look at even our parents’ generation, and there was a lot of dieting and this yo-yo: “Okay, I’m going to diet, but then I’m going to binge and eat everything on the weekend.” 

For the woman who’s listening right now and feels stuck in this yo-yo cycle where it’s like, “Okay, I did good, and then I did bad,” and it’s back and forth, what encouragement do you have for her?

Erin: First, I would tell her to not be okay with it. I do think we have this mindset that that’s just part of being a woman. “All women struggle with food and weight and body image and identity. That’s all a part of the same enchilada,” to use a food metaphor there. I would just say, don’t be okay with it. Don’t settle for, “I’m going to spend my whole life with this volatile relationship with food, which is something that I have to deal with every single day, and that’s just how it is.”

Jesus called us to freedom. He called us to abundance. He called us to joy. As Christians, we are to have happy hearts for all that God gave us. So, first of all, I would just put a stake in the ground as you’re listening to this, like, “No! No more! I don’t want to operate that way anymore.”

Then I would say, look around, because they’re rare, but I bet there are women in your church, in your community that you look at them and go, “Why does she seem to have freedom here?” It’s probably not because she’s the thinnest one or the most fit one. It’s probably just a woman that has some sort of peace around her approach to food. I would start with just spending some time with her, because we do need to be re-programmed. I mean, I don’t think I even understand the scope of how much we hear related to food that is just nonsense. It’s just dripping into our minds all the time, and we do need to be reprogrammed. So, I’d find a guide, a woman that you emulate and admire her own approach to this.

Bethany: Well, you are one of those women. You’ve been dropping some truth bombs already, and we’re only at the very beginning!

Erin: Oh, thank you! (hissing sound) That’s my bomb noise. (laughter)

Bethany: You said something that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. You said that food is a missionary to tell who God is. You talked so much about that and how food is a blessing. Can you unpack that a little bit more? I think that stopped a lot of us in our tracks. “Food is a missionary? What in the world are you talking about?”

Erin: Well, that really comes from Romans 1, which is just one of my favorite passages. I know I say that about all the passages, but really, Romans 1 is an important one to me. What Romans 1 tells us is that the invisible nature of God can be seen in what He has made.

I’ve said it differently; I’ve said that creation is God’s first missionary, meaning you can go outside and go, “I didn’t make the stars. I didn’t plant that oak tree. There’s someone, something bigger than me,” and at least know there’s a Creator. But I think it goes deeper than that, and you know what? Every single blueberry God created.

I have this blackberry patch, which is my pride and joy, on my little farm. I have worked it and cultivated it. I’m not kidding you, in the summer it makes blackberries as big as my thumb.

Bethany: Oh, my goodness!

Erin: So, it’s this summer thing, “Oh, they’re blooming! They’re on! They’re red! They’re black!” Then we have the best blackberry cobbler of the year. But who created that? The Lord did.

It’s really not an overstatement that when the blackberries are ripe, I know that God is good, that He’s powerful, that He’s a creator, and that He loves me. That blackberry patch is just for me (and whoever I choose to share it with).

That’s what I mean by food can be a missionary. If we choose to receive food as a gift, which I think is what we see in Scripture . . . It is the Lord who feeds us, and we can have a gratitude towards food that reminds us, “God’s good. He loves me. He gives me good things. He sustains me. He provides for me.” Food is so easily accessible to us in the modern era that I think we lose a little bit of our awareness that we need God to feed us every day, and He does. So, I just think food can be missionaries or messengers to show us who God is and remind us that He loves us enough to give us humongous blackberries!

Bethany: That’s so freeing. I have felt this way, too. I want to have so much control over this area of my life, and food being a missionary, food being a good thing can seem so foreign. I know even through your devotional, which we’re obviously talking about, you’re going to help us with that. But this whole idea of control—we hear you and we’re like, “Yes, this sounds good, but I just feel like my fists are clenched. I don’t want to give up control in this area.” How can you help us? Our fists are closed, Erin!

Erin: You’re taking me right back to recovering from that eating disorder. I know not every woman has an eating disorder, but I think most of us have disordered eating. What I had to learn as I was coming out of that is, no, food is good. Food is not bad. It is not something I’m just constantly trying to wrestle or control (you used the right word there); it’s a gift first and foremost.

Now, it doesn’t stop there. Is this an area where we need self-control? Absolutely. Is this an area where our nutrition is reflected in the way we behave and the way we feel? Absolutely. I’m not just saying, “Ingest all food all the time and celebrate it!” That’s swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction. But if we could just start with the simple truth that “food is good and food is from God,” or “God is good and food is from God,” that really does set our feet on the path of giving up control, because then we want to steward something that’s been given to us. 

That’s true of all kinds of things. Marriage is good, it’s a gift, but if I try to control the thing, it goes haywire. Money, resources are good, they’re gifts from God, but if I’m trying to hyper-control every penny, it goes haywire. Just that starting place of, “God is good, God has given me this good thing,” shifts us from closed fists to open hands, because then we want to be good stewards in the patch of blackberries the Lord has given us.

Dannah: That was Erin Davis and Bethany Beal from The Deep Well podcast. You can hear more of that conversation along with Erin’s teaching on the blessings and the dangers of our relationship to food by subscribing to The Deep Well. Erin recorded a whole season, based on her book Fasting and Feasting.

You can also get more information about Erin’s podcast, The Deep Well, by visiting our website, ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Nancy: Thanks, Dannah. While you’re at ReviveOurHearts.com, check out the progress bar at the top of the page. It’s a pink, sideways thermometer-type bar. It shows you how close we are to reaching our May goal. Let me say, by the way, if God provides even more than the amount we are asking for, praise God. There are so many powerful, life-giving opportunities to bless women around the world, and we'll be able to take advantage of more of those if the Lord gives over and above what we've been asking Him for.

If you’ve been a part this month of giving toward this need, thank you so much for your investment in the women we are reaching day after day! And if you've been thinking about participating with us, tomorrow’s the last day of May, so we need to hear from you today or tomorrow. Help us continue to reach women all around the world with the message of finding satisfaction in Jesus alone.

When you make a donation, we’ll say thank you with a physical copy of a book of ten biographies of women used powerfully by God and a way to download a digital version of a second volume that features ten more stories of women used by God. The title for both volumes is (Un)remarkable. And again, volumes 1 and 2, they’re our way of expressing our gratitude for your donation of any amount here in the month of May.

Dannah: That’s right, and when you give to this ministry, you’re a part of something extraordinary: helping women find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. Thank you for your support at this important time. 

Visit ReviveOurHearts.com to donate today, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Be sure to request your volumes of (Un)remarkable. That’s 1-800-569-5959.

There is only one way to satisfy that longing, that thirst inside of us. We’ll dig into that next time as Nancy wraps up the series, “Satisfying Our Thirst.” Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is helping you find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.