You have to believe you’re going to make it, God said to me.

There are probably as many forms of escapism in the world as there are people. I’m quick to recognise it only because it is one of the major flaws I’m working on, and I see it most lucidly in myself.

Recently I went through some heartbreak. Turns out it’s possible to relate to a very good past in a very bad way. I didn’t want to think about certain things, because the hurt would consume me. I asked God, crying, “What am I going to think about now?” He said, Me.

So daily I’ve been practicing filling every void with Him. Christians preach that God is the only all-satisfying one, but I haven’t always lived it like I believed it. Either I never believed it enough, or I never believed it at all.

We face empty spaces in life every day. Occasional loneliness. Boredom in the office. The loss of a loved one. A future yet unknown. Lack of security, lack of validation, uncertainty, doubts. How often is turning to God in that moment, and asking Him to give us what we need, our default response? How often is it social media? How often is it ministry? Drugs? Food? Sleep?

In a world at war within itself, where the tragedy never stops and every enjoyable thing expires, worshiping God is the safest activity.

God asks us to worship Him because adoring perfection will never let us down. We will never run out of things to wonder at. In a world at war within itself, where the tragedy never stops and every enjoyable thing expires, worshiping God is the safest activity.

The prophet Isaiah says of God, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You.” (Isaiah 26:3) There will never be a safer place to be found here. God is so big that we could think about Him for a lifetime and only scrape the surface of what eternity after would allow.

What goes on in the world is nauseating. Exposure to it makes one anxious. Once, after doing some research on the Rohingya crisis, I lay on my bed and cried. I asked God what to do. He said, worship Me.

I cried even more because I wish He had said something else, something that sounded less lame, something that I could see the direct impact of right here and now. I didn’t challenge Him, because that would’ve been rude. But He didn’t need me to – He knew my questions.

Before you get anything done, you first have to know I am good. You have to remember and be convinced of My goodness.

Worship centres us. We fixate upon constant love and so are stabilised. I think God wants all of us to go through a time of realignment with Him, and the things that matter most to Him. Just like how when the Corinthian church got all excited about the spectrum of spiritual gifts, Apostle Paul reminded them of their fundamental purpose: To love one another (1 Corinthians 14).

God is the beginning, the happy ending, and the one I cling to all moments in between.

Obedience is enough to love a person. But there is more: Being willing to enter God’s heart. We can love someone because He asks us to, or we can love them because we have dared to step into His heart. And the returns of loving a person should always come from Him. When we know that voids in affirmation and recognition are all filled by Him, we become unstoppable lovers.

It all seems so straightforward to me right now. When your life is centred on God then it really doesn’t matter what happens. Or happened. Abandonment, or heartbreak, being forgotten, being neglected. Why not try asking Him to fill the void where it’s most needed, right there and then? Why not reset the defaults of where we run to when we hit an empty space?

You have to believe you’re going to make it, were His words to me in my recent struggle.

I have always taken a lot of comfort in the fact that He knows my journey. Sees what no one else sees, understands when others don’t. But recently, I had an epiphany. He not only knows my journey, He is my journey. He is the beginning, the happy ending, and the one I cling to all moments in between.

Jesus has been right in the thick of death and loss, of changes in seasons and new life. When I feel like my story isn’t going anywhere or has somehow been ruined, I remember that His story is mine just as much as mine is His. I am going to make it, because He did.