The Empty House

Rejecting the pull of materialism for true fulfillment.

By Cameron Lawrence

The long stretches of bare wood floors. The blank walls and the small square table in the larger rectangular room. The study with no desk in it.

My wife and I let out a sigh as we surveyed our new home, more than twice the size of the apartment we had just vacated. Room by room, we took note of the furniture and décor we lacked, as our voices echoed back to us the emptiness of our new abode.

Of course, none of this amounted to a real problem. A few rooms that lacked this or that furnishing in no way equaled any of life’s great trials. And yet, the desire to make a house into a home stayed on our minds. The catalogs rolled in, and we found ourselves strolling through stores, making mental notes on cost and color and dimension.

In the ensuing weeks, I also found myself explaining, nearly apologizing, to friends who stopped by to see the new place. The burden of emptiness weighed upon us, and the need to keep up—a practice I had long been critical of—came with unexpected force. And most surprising was the strength of my own desire to possess.

The sinister thing about materialism is that it’s like a quiet, patient parasite, content to overtake its host in the slowest and subtlest of increments. The longer the organism goes unchecked, the larger it grows, often imperceptibly, until the substance of a man has been hollowed beneath his outer shell.

The most elemental definition of materialism refers to the belief that what exists here in the physical world is the only reality. Forget God, the soul, spirit, or heavenly realm. This is the spirit of the age—the world-view undergirding education, economy, and social interaction (even among believers).

Whether mindful of it or not, we Christians are swimming against a materialist current at all times. And tragically, without our noticing, that current has often moved us further down the river toward a precipice, unaware that we were never swimming hard enough to make it upstream.

As thinking people, we know that outer adornment of our houses or bodies ultimately has no bearing on our personal worth. And yet, underneath the sound theological reasoning or critical evaluation of our culture’s values, the desire to impress with our own sense of aesthetics points to the uncomfortable truth that the spirit of the age has made a home in us.

When I rely on my belongings to craft an identity, I unconsciously reveal that I’ve elevated the material as my ultimate reality, though I may say otherwise among fellow Christians. Actions speak louder and demonstrate the underlying belief that my true self is actually determined not in the sight of God, but in the eyes of men—or worse, by looking in the mirror.

A house may need furnishings to be functional, and the body may need clothes. But our hearts turn down a dark road when building a home or a wardrobe twists into making idols. When we worship the material, the object of our devotion is not things but ultimately self, rather than the One whose image we bear. In the end, the materialist project is a lie that may fill our homes but will leave us hopelessly empty.

We should remember that all of our earthly possessions are like autumn leaves, beautiful and glittering in the sunlight as they float, but falling nonetheless from great heights. We can make our bed in those leaves, but it would be far better to keep walking toward the perpetual light of God, with hearts unfettered by unhealthy attachment to this world.