Ever feel disappointed with your life, wondering Is this all there is?

Get up and go to church. Serve on the volunteer team. Open your Bible app, read today’s verses; check. Show up at small group. Pay your tithe. Did I even pray today? Try to ignore your vague sense of guilt for feeling empty and bored. Is this all there is?

Rush out the door to work and realize, I forgot to say “I love you.” Pick up the grocery list your wife texted you on your way home. The few words spoken over dinner are mostly about the bills. She goes to bed early and you’re left watching a movie alone. Is this all there is?

Check your messages again; nothing. Hold yourself together through all the work Zoom meetings. Finish the emails in your inbox. Reschedule your next doctor’s appointment. Pass the evening scrolling through your phone. Is this all there is?

The long messy middle of life can feel tedious and uninspiring. Some people are a little better at disciplining themselves to do more of the “right” things, hoping that will fill the empty places inside. How long can you keep this up? Maybe there’s something wrong with you for not being satisfied with the way things are. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

When doing all or many of the right things still leaves you miserable, what then?

Let me suggest that discontent doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. What’s missing is tending to the matters of the heart.

Shallow Behavioral Living

What you do matters. A lot. Exercising regularly means you will be physically and mentally healthier. Going to work every day means your bank account will be healthier. You’ll know more about God if you read your Bible daily. But a life focused on doing quickly becomes empty and meaningless.

When things aren’t working it’s easy to double down and try to do more. Maybe you haven’t really been doing the right things. Looking for some new program or job or sex partner or church – that should help, right? Busyness can distract you from your starving soul. Little addictions seem to take the edge off, or easily turn into bigger addictions.

Much of the church has taught people to do more. Volunteer more. Pray harder. Get married the “right” way. And that kind of behavioral living ends up very shallow. Watching the Christians around you and observing the way church functions can leave you thinking that the way to the good life is doing more, even if you intellectually believe you can’t earn God’s favor. And it’s a miserable way to live.

A Heart Rescue

If doing more is a false and exhausting non-solution, what might it look like to address the matters of the heart?

It can be scary to look under the surface and contend with your heart. Who knows what could happen? Your old trauma might swallow you whole. The hidden rage might erupt in a destructive volcano. Buried heartache or grief might paralyze you if it doesn’t kill you. Exposing your shame seems totally intolerable. If you stop exerting all your energy to hold the broken pieces together, well, you might end up like Humpty Dumpty – nobody can put you together again.

But think about this; how has what you’ve been doing been working for you? Hiding, pretending, is exhausting; the only way to rest is to just stop. Doing heart work often first means it’s time to let go. As Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. . . . [Y]ou will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

If you have done some good heart work, you’ve experienced that letting go is the very way to rescue – as long as you let go into God’s arms. And yet this is something we usually have to keep learning over and over again. As we come up against each new challenge it shows yet another space in our souls that we need to give Jesus access to.

So how do you do that heart work?

Deeper with People

Facing the deeper matters of your own heart will require going deeper with people. A FEW people. This is not something you do with 150 others on a Sunday morning in church. And it’s not something you do in a programmed 8-week small group curriculum. This means you find a few people with whom you can go deeper.

In all the work I’ve done with people for many years, this is often the hardest step for them to take. I’ve heard all the excuses; I don’t have any friends. There’s no safe people in my life. The people at church don’t care about me. I tried and it didn’t work. I don’t have anyone to talk to.

People are messy. But just like Jesus, you need your Peter, James, and John anyway. If there’s one single thing to “do”, it’s this. Find your people. If you’re married, your spouse can be one of your people – if they’re willing, but you also need additional people.

Survey your world; who might be relatively safe. Safe enough. Reach out and ask them; “God’s working on me, and I know I need to connect more. I’m wondering if you might be one of my people. Can we plan a time to talk?”

Just do it!

Deeper with Jesus

And there’s a part of your soul that only God Himself can fill. Most churches I’ve seen focus most on external behaviors, but that does precious little to change the heart. Knowing more about God is great, but that doesn’t hold a candle to actually knowing Him.

If your life with Jesus is relatively strong and close, let me suggest taking the time to ask Him to show you His perspective on your life, your heart, your priorities, your motives. What’s the next thing He wants to work on in you?

And if an intimate life with Jesus seems like a foreign concept, let me suggest you start with 5-10 minutes each morning. Here’s a short outline of what that can look like:

• Take a moment to notice your present emotional state. Name it. Be present in your body.
• Express that to Jesus in just a couple sentences, as if you could physically see Him in the room with you.
• Read a Psalm or one vignette from the life of Jesus in the Bible.
• Sit quietly and pray, “Jesus, do You have something to say to me?”

Being with Jesus in that way will start to transform you!

Where you are now is not all there is. The matters of your heart are calling. Will you tend to them?

Your turn: Have you felt strangely empty, and perhaps felt guilty for wondering Is this all there is? What’s that been like for you?  Leave a comment below.

Want more? On this week’s podcast I talk with Bill and Kristi Gaultierre about some keys in getting to those deeper matters of the heart.  Listen or watch.

Tweetables: why not share this post?

• Ever felt empty and disappointed, wondering “Is this all there is to life?” The answer is not doing more; the answer is getting to the deeper matters of the heart, and that means going deeper with others, and with God.  Tweet that.

Getting to the Matters of the Heart

The wounds, the unhealthy beliefs, the behavior patterns, the internal struggles, the spiritual oppression especially around intimacy, sex, and relationships – we can help with that.

Join us at an upcoming intensive – a beautiful 3-4 day premium experience that can change so much. Bring the hard places of your story into the light, and experience Jesus coming right into the middle of your story with healing, freedom, and transformation.