How To Avoid Feeling Empty

Are you someone who enjoys standing around with friends singing popular songs into a microphone over pre-recorded music? We call this type of entertainment “karaoke.” Year after year, a favorite karaoke song is one written by Paul Anka and popularized by Frank Sinatra. You know the song, titled My Way, and the words, “I did it my way.” According to karaoke experts (there really is such a thing), the most popular karaoke song is Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline.

There is something to be said about charting your own course through life rather than simply following in someone’s footsteps. In fact, Robert Frost wrote a well known poem titled The Road Not Taken which begins with the words “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both” and ends with this –

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages hence and hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

But “my way” or the “one less traveled” is not what God desires of us when we submit to Him. The Bible is full of people who did it their way, beginning in the Garden of Eden. Chapter 27 of Genesis might just be the most disobedience filled chapter in the entire Bible. It narrates the “My way” actions of one very dysfunctional family.  

But if we truly love God and we trust that His ways are better than our ways, then we will desire to live out that love and trust in our actions. Obedience to God is defined as submitting our ways, our wills, to Him. As you can guess, the Bible is also full of references to “God’s Way.” Abram, showed no hesitation when God instructed him to “go from your country” in Genesis Chapter 12. Joshua was told to march around Jericho for seven days and then the city would be destroyed (Joshua Chap. 6). And of course, Jesus is our ultimate example of obedience, even when it was painful. In the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-46) He cried out to God, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

After a long night of fishing and pulling their nets up empty, Jesus asked master fisherman Peter to go back out and try again. It is likely that Peter wasn’t too happy with that request, but here is his response to Jesus, found in Luke 5:5 – “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”  

Now i just hope God never asks this of me, as He did of Isaiah – “In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, ‘Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.’ And he did so, going naked and barefoot.” (Isaiah Chap. 20; the text goes on to tell us that Isaiah walked around naked and barefoot for three years.)

The first verse of the hymn Have Thine Own Way written by Adelaide Addison Pollard and Dana Mengel so beautifully narrates the very essence of obedience. It goes like this – “Have Thine own Way Lord have Thine own way, Thou art the Potter I am the clay, Mold me and make me after Thy will, While I am waiting yielded and still.”

The word karaoke comes from two Japanese words: “kara” which means empty and “oke” which means orchestra. Doing life your own way often does leave you feeling empty. Jesus, in the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer says this, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

So, today I encourage you to fully submit your will to Jesus and leave “I did it my way” to what you sing when you gather with friends around the Karaoke Machine.