The Emptiness You Feel When You’re “Out There”

In the last post we looked at the ancient story that has wrongfully come to be called, The Prodigal Son. I said it’s labeled wrong because it’s a story about two lost sons- the older and the younger. In fact, a strong case could be made that the story is more about the older brother than it is the younger brother. Jesus, masterfully helps us to see that the older brother represents the religious, the younger the irreligious, and the father is a picture of God, or the gospel.

This story exposes a painful reality- that lodged within all of us is a little bit of the older brother and the younger brother. For example, when the younger brother takes his inheritance early from his father and heads out to the far country he is literally trying to find meaning in life a part from his dad. This journey to find fulfillment away from God is a universal struggle to all humanity. There is a piece of the younger brother that resides in all of our hearts whether you’re a prostitute or a pastor.

Blaise Paschal, the great 17^th century philosopher, said that we’re all born with a God-sized hole that only God can fill. But sadly, so many of us waste our lives trying to fill it ourselves. Materialism, hedonism, moralism, intellectualism and all other “isms” are nothing more than weekend passes to the far country, joining other younger brothers in a quest to find meaning a part from God. That somewhere in the back of our minds there’s an overwhelming drive to feel significant a part from God.

Solomon, the third king of Israel felt this drive to journey to the far country. In his memoirs entitled, Ecclesiastes, he, in a very vulnerable way, takes us with him into the far country. He talks about his attempts at trying to find meaning in life away from the Father. He tried to find it in women (he had 1,000), money (most scholars say that by today’s estimates he would have been a billionaire several times over), houses, possessions, and being “good”. What was his conclusion? “Vanity of vanities,” he says over and over again in his memoirs, “all is vanity”. It’s interesting that Solomon would choose the word vanity to describe his journey into the far country. The Hebrew for vanity (that’s the language Solomon writes his memoirs in) means emptiness. Ironically, when Solomon tried to find fulfillment a part from God out in the far country he only felt emptiness. This is the same feeling that the younger brother had when he landed in the pig pen-emptiness. And this is the same feeling all of us younger brothers will feel when we venture into the far country and try to live life a detached from our Heavenly Father.