“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” or so the saying goes.

I think I understand what it means – it means that we should beware idleness and boredom, because it’s during those moments when we don’t think we have anything to do or think about it or construct or whatever – it’s those moments when temptation is most dangerous.

When we are idle, whether it’s because we’re tired or lazy or even so overwhelmed that we just don’t know where to start, that idelenss creates a kind of vacuum. And a vacuum is going to be filled by something. Jesus actually taught a similar principle to this:

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first” (Luke 11:24-26).

A vacuum is going to be filled. In Jesus’ teaching, the vacuum happens when a spirit comes out of a person. But if that person, who now has a space inside them previously occupied by something else, isn’t diligent to fill it themselves, then it will be all the worse. Because that space is going to be filled.

Surely you know what this is like. Imagine, if you would, one of those evenings in which plans have fallen through. You thought you were going to be occupied with this or that, but now you don’t have anything going on. At first, there is a feeling of relief because you have some time to yourself. But then you start to sit. And you sit. And you sit. And the more that you are alone with your own thoughts, the more they seem to betray you.

You start to worry about that conversation you had earlier in the week, second guessing how you handled yourself and how the other person took your remarks. You start to consider the broader state of the world, the conflict overseas, and political climate of our own nation, and you wonder about the future. You think about your own bank account and how you probably should have saved more for retirement by now. And suddenly the vacuum is filled.

If left to our own devices, we are most likely going to fill that vacuum with all the pent up cynicism, fear, anger, and anxiety that we don’t have time to think about when we are consumed with other matters. And we would do well to recognize that fact, and proactively think about what it is that we actually want to fill that vacuum.

This is one of the incredible things about memorizing the Word of God. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:11 that he hid God’s word in his heart, and perhaps that language is instructive for us. When you hide something, you put it out of sight. Tuck it away. In fact, you might even forget that it’s there. This is what it’s like when we make a habit of memorizing Scripture. We tuck it away, and we might even forget that it’s there, but it is. It’s taking up space way down deep in our hearts, and in those moments when we find ourselves in a vacuum we will be glad it’s there.

It’s in those moments that what has been hidden in our heart makes a reappearance. And we need something to battle all the other fear, anxiety, bitterness, and cynicism that’s also hidden in our hearts. Scripture can fill that vacuum.

After all, something is going to. What better than God’s word?