A young man lies in bed at one in the morning with his phone six inches from his face. He scrolls past a girl on a beach, a friend's new car, a stranger's apartment in a city he has never visited. He puts the phone down, picks it up again, and scrolls some more. Tomorrow he will feel worse than he does tonight.

He lives by proxy. He sees through other people's eyes and measures himself against other people's best moments. The result is predictable. He feels left out and behind.

Blame the phone and you will miss it. The phone only exposes what was already there: an empty place inside him, and a screen that cannot fill it.

Adam was made with a space for Christ

Genesis records how God made the first man.

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Genesis 2:7 (NKJV)

Adam is the prototype of every person who came after him. God gave him a body, a soul, and life. God did not place His Son inside Adam. That space was left open. Adam would have to choose whether Christ would live in him.

So every human being is born with a vacuum. Solomon describes it this way:

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NKJV)

An eternal space in a mortal body. Nothing made of time can fill it. That is why a promotion satisfies for a week and a new car for a month. The space was built for a Person.

An empty house does not stay empty

Someone will say, "Fine, I will leave it empty. I do not want anyone in there." That option does not exist.

Jesus told a story about an unclean spirit that left a man. The spirit wandered, found no rest, and decided to return.

"Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first." Matthew 12:44-45 (NKJV)

The house was swept and in order, but it was empty, and the emptiness was the invitation.

If Christ does not fill the vacuum, another presence will. There is a malevolent presence who wants that space, and when he takes it, he does not decorate. He drives.

That is why a man cannot stop the habit he despises. He cannot end the addiction he swore off last January. Paul describes the experience from the inside:

"For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." Romans 7:15 (NKJV)

Jesus gives the diagnosis:

"Jesus answered them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.'" John 8:34 (NKJV)

Someone else has taken the wheel.

Why more is never enough

The same vacuum explains the man who is not in bed at one in the morning but in an office at one in the morning. He made his first million and needed a second. He crossed a hundred million and now talks about a billion. Ask him when he will have enough, and he cannot name a figure.

He thinks he is searching for money. He is searching for the space inside himself. Money is the wrong shape for it.

Jesus said this to a crowd that had followed Him for bread:

"And Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.'" John 6:35 (NKJV)

Not "hunger less often." Never hunger. That is the language of a space that has been filled for good.

How the space gets filled

The filling is a Person, and He brings His Spirit with Him.

"But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." Romans 8:9 (NKJV)

When you receive Christ, the vacuum receives the Holy Spirit. Paul says the believer is complete in Him:

"For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." Colossians 2:9-10 (NKJV)

The word translated "complete" is (pepleromenoi) πεπληρωμένοι — "having been filled, made full." It is a perfect passive participle of (pleroo) πληρόω — "to fill, make full." The filling already happened, and its result stands.

The young man with the phone does not need a better feed, and the executive does not need another zero. Both need the same thing Adam was made to hold.

You were built with a room only Christ can occupy; leave it empty and something else will move in.