We all have an empty seat to fill in our hearts.
I remember when one of my friends started a new romantic relationship with a girl. He said to me, “It feels so good to be wanted.” He went on to tell me that for years he had been a loner, just keeping to himself. He said that he had been miserable—but not now.
As he told me this, to be honest, I thought to myself, “Yeah, but how long is this going to last?” What happens when the girl is no longer in the picture, will you be “unwanted?” It’s so scary to give your heart away like that, for it can be dropped in an instant.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be wanted, so don’t read me wrongly. We all want to be wanted; and that’s a natural and healthy thing. We all have an empty seat to fill in our hearts: the seat where the “Wanter” sits. We attempt to fill that Wanter seat in many ways and with many things. We welcome so many applicants to fill the seat of the Wanter in our lives. This will be the person or thing or cause that we ask to fill the very special position of “wanting me” in our lives.
I have a Wanter seat; you have a Wanter seat, just like my friend had a Wanter seat. In his case, a girl came into his life and sat down in it. She became the Wanter in his life.
But what happens when she decides to get up and walk away from this seat? When the seat is empty, the pain will strike, as she takes away a piece of him as she goes. Then he’ll soon accept other applicants for the position of Wanter in his life.
There has to be a better way; there has to be a kind of Wanter that will not move on, taking a chunk of your soul with it when it goes.
Anything that sits in the Wanter seat that is not God, is an idol. If you give your life to God and allow him to sit in that seat, then you will not be hurt. For God will not leave you and he will not take from you. Idols, on the other hand, make demands on us and eventually abuse and abandon us. Idols are leaches that have no life in themselves; they merely suck the life out of their hosts, as they sit menacingly in the Wanter seat.
Jesus told his followers, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus was not a poser or an imposter or an idol, in other words. Jesus did not come to take from you, but to give to you. An idol takes life, but the Son of God gives life.
What does the Son of God (in our verse his title is “The Son of Man”) give? Jesus gives us his life as a ransom. In those days, slaves could be bought from the marketplace if the right “ransom” price were given. As the metaphor goes, we are the slaves on the auction block, waiting for someone to buy us and take us home. Along comes God to do the bidding. He looks at us, standing there in our dirt and dismay, and says, “I’ll buy that slave.” He goes on, “The ransom price that I will give will be the life of my Son, Jesus.”
God then gives up his legitimate Son in order to bring home illegitimate children—that’s us. Having spent so much on us, with blood as proof, we know that he wants us. Thus God is the supreme Wanter, who gives dearly in order to claim that seat in our lives.
Don’t fall for the tricks of false Wanters—they will destroy your life, bit by bit. You deserve far more than that. Your Wanter seat was built to be filled by just one, God himself. Don’t settle for less. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you cannot have romantic relationships or desire other things in life. I’m not saying that at all. I’m talking about opening up your life to a Wanter that will remain when all the others fail you.
© 2010 by Samuel Kee
