As a little girl I remember my mama pulling up to the full service gas station in our green 1972 Monte Carlo and telling good ol’ Bill to “fill ‘er up”. There wasn’t a worry in the world when we had a full tank of gas.

Today, we need to fill ‘er up. We’re running on empty. Our lives have become filled with negativity.

There’s one way to flush the negative out of your life … fill ‘er up! Fill your life with so much goodness there’s simply no room for anything else. When you’re eating all the healthy food, you’re so full you can’t eat the cookies and pint of icecream. When your mind is consumed by positive voices and readings of hopeful truth, there’s no space for the negative to come bombard your awareness. When you surround yourself with healthy relationships, those toxic ones naturally get crowded out.

This is a matter of choice. It always is. You don’t have to exert all your willpower avoiding the bad when you’re dwelling in all the goodness God intended for you. When there’s no leftover space for the negativity, for the toxic, for the unhealthy, for the temptation, then it must move along and look for another space, because yours has already been filled with predestined goodness. Choose wisely how you fill the spaces in your life, then those choices will deflect everything else that doesn’t fit.

Romans 15:13 “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Fill you COMPLETELY. Not kinda sorta, give you a little bit. No, completely. May you be filled completely with joy and peace. Why is that? Because you have an enemy in this world who is lurking in the shadows and he is continually drying to deal his darkness, his despair, his overwhelm, his fear and his worry. That’s what he has to give you. Check yourself sister, are you carrying around dealings of the enemy? Have the spaces of your heart and mind been filled with this darkness?

You feel it, don’t you? He came in and occupied any empty space you had with his worry. Any crack has been filled with overwhelm. Despair has been poured into the void. Fear crept right in.

Why is that? Because there was space for him to fill, so he did. There was an availability, an open door, and he came right in.

This is what happens every time we allow emptiness. Emptiness in our thoughts. Emptiness in our day. Emptiness in our habits. Anything left unprotected is vulnerable. The time you are not intentional with often falls victim to nonsense, and in that nonsense is the devil’s foothold to gain a little more control. We waste a little piece of our lives today, then we waste a little more tomorrow. That grows and continues, and we soon realize we’re living without intention, wandering out lost without purpose, filled with anxiety and worry, and feel powerless to do anything about it.

Dang … isn’t that our world today? Isn’t that the threat? Emptiness has brought us to a place of great loss.

How do we fix this?

We fill the space completely, intentionally, and leave absolutely no room for anything else.

As you trust fully in God, allow him to completely fill you with joy and peace. Stay connected to him and receive everything he has for you. As our scripture says, when you’re filled completely, you will then “overflow with confident hope”. And girl, when you’re so filled that you’re overflowing, there’s absolutely no room for a drop of anything else to come in.

More God. More of his goodness. More of his joy. More of his peace. More of his confidence. More of his hope. More and more and more to fill ever space completely. Nothing left untouched. Nothing left empty. Nothing left closed off. Everything open and available to God, then filled to overflowing with his goodness.

This is your answer.

You don’t have to try to avoid the devil when you’re seeking God with your whole heart. You don’t have to fear the future when you’re counting your abundance of blessings in the present. You don’t have to worry about the darkness when your face is continually pointed toward the light.

Worry has no place to sit when your mind is already completely filled with joy and peace. Three’s simply no place for it to dwell, so it is dismissed. Overwhelm has no room to occupy when your life is sold out. The no vacancy sign is lit up, sorry overwhelm, I have no room for you here. I’m a child of God and I am completely filled up with his offerings of joy and peace. In fact, I’m so filled up, I have extra joy and peace overflowing out of the rooms and waiting in the halls to come in. I have no room for nothing else.

This is how you can face trials and troubles, hardships and heartache, struggles and setbacks, without a complete breakdown and despair. Those things will still come, but when you’re filled to overflowing with the offerings of God, it has no access to your spirit or your mind. You’re protected by the goodness you have chosen to fill all your spaces and nothing else gets to come in and darken your joy and peace.

Think about Eve in the garden. The enemy tricked her into eating the apple. She was given every single fruit in the entire garden to eat, and only the fruit on this one tree was off limits. If she would have been busy eating all the goodness, when the slimy serpenant came in offering the forbidden fruit, she would have been so full she couldn’t have taken a bite. “Sorry snake, not today, I’ve been over here eating all this deliciousness God gave me and I’m filled to overflowing. I can’t take another bite.” Space was left, and the enemy found his way into that space.

Be filled by God’s goodness. Filled to overflowing. Leave no empty space at all for the enemy. Count your blessings and let them fill your mind. Eat the great food God has created for you. Listen to joyous music that sings his praise. Read positive encouraging words that remind you of his truths.

I have no room in my day for anything else. No room in my conversations for negativity. No space in my mind for worry. There are too many blessings here. Too much positivity. Too much of God’s goodness. Too much gratitude. Too much hope. Too much peace. Whew, it’s just overflowing and nothing else even has a chance of coming in! And it’s all because God is the source of our hope and he is the one who fills us with joy and peace!