There was something missing in my life and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. In many ways it was a great time of life. I had graduated from high school as the co-valedictorian, found college studies to be interesting, challenging, and sometimes even exciting, and I dearly loved the discussions with other students when we pooled our imagined intellectual abilities (our ignorance) in discussions of philosophy and science. We had swallowed Darwinism whole –hook, line, and sinker. We were really proud of our agnosticism. We thought we were agnostic because we were intellectual. We didn’t know “Agnostic” means “without knowledge”.
Then there were the fun times with the crowd on Saturday night. But something was wrong. There was something missing. I had every reason to be happy, but I was miserable – inwardly miserable.
It was years later after I found the answer in a relationship with Jesus Christ, that I heard a preacher give a name to that emptiness I had felt. He called it a “God Shaped Vacuum.” Man was made for a relationship and fellowship with God. Nothing or no one else can give the inner peace and satisfaction that every human needs and craves.
When I repented of my sins and placed my faith and trust in the finished work of Christ and confessed Him as my Lord, the Holy Spirit did His work of regeneration in my spirit, and I have never been the same. The old emptiness has been gone for sixty years. My God Shaped Vacuum was filled by the Spirit of God. He came to stay. He said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” No one but God can give the heart satisfaction.
CHRIST IS THE ANSWER!
J.T. Parish is the Founding Pastor of Christian Fellowship Church. He further serves on the Church Leadership Council, as Chairman of the Board of World Missions and Evangelism, and as President of the School of Ministry.