There is a vacuum in everyone that must be filled. It is like a gap, space or a big gully in our souls, which our beings crave to fill. Interestingly, this vacuum never fills up. It seeks more and more ‘stuffs’ to be poured into it to be ‘satisfied’.
This is the ‘story behind the story’ of addictions.
With some activities, the soul seems to be at peace with itself while they are on. Afterwards, the unsettling feeling comes again causing another longing for that activity that had been ‘tested’ to pacify it. This then becomes an addiction. One could be addicted to bad things as well as good things. For the ‘bad’ ones, people are quick to notice and label such as addictions. However, when it is the supposedly ‘good’ ones or better still the ‘legitimate’ ones, identifying and labeling addictions for what it is becomes muddled.
Many are addicted to food, sleep, drinks, shopping, chatting, visiting, chores, games and the likes, which are seen and taken as normal daily human activities. In the absence of that particular activity, many become restless and are not themselves. However, the ‘story behind the story’ is that longing deep within us to fill that vacuum. That vacuum was placed there by God and could only be filled adequately and sufficiently by our life purpose for which he created each of us.
There was this event during the time of Jesus on earth as recorded in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John. It started with Jesus being hungry, longing for food and ended with him being satisfied without eating food. When asked why he was no longer hungry and now energized as against the weariness that stopped him at the well, Jesus responded that he had eaten; he had filled up that vacuum in him. The vacuum demand in him manifested in the form of hunger but Jesus filled it with the right thing- doing and finishing the will of God -and he was satisfied.
How many times have we longed for food even after eating not too long before then and became gluttons? How many times have we longed for more tasks/chores to do even when there is none more and became workaholics? How many times have people longed for more episodes to watch after watching all that is available and have become fanatics? If only we could have realized the ‘story behind the story’ as that vacuum longing for a filling and respond appropriately by pursuing our purpose.
The above narrative also suffices for those ‘bad’ longings that have become cycles we are often ready to label addictions. It was simply the flesh, the old man, the carnal nature seeking its own means of filling that vacuum. Therefore, the host is ‘soothed’ for a while only for the vacuum to ‘protest’ that it has been ‘swindled’. Therefore, the flesh goes for another round or batch of that thing with more intensity. Then comes another relief before another ‘protest’ and the cycle continues. The carnal nature has simply found a ‘short cut’, an alternative means of filling the vacuum even though it is superficial.
This vacuum in you, which these addictions seek to satisfy but fail to, can only be filled by the experience of purpose fulfillment. The vacuum was created to be filled by the pursuit of your life assignment and could only be filled by that. It is a case of a round peg, fitting the round hole from which it was hewn out. Your purpose on earth created the vacuum in the first place and you will fill it by gathering the ‘bits’ of your purpose one after another.
Just like Jesus ‘conquered’ that ‘hunger’ by doing the will of God expressed via his life assignment of going about doing good and making well all who were troubled by evil spirits (Acts 10:38), consciously respond to those repeated longing for that ‘thing’ by drowning and burying yourself in your purpose. You will be soothed, relieved, comforted, delighted and settled without doing that ‘thing’.
