What we put in the blank matters.  It is our nature to put secondary things in the blank and it is the nature of Jesus to let us try.  Whenever I hear someone say, “That’s what it’s all about,” I know what they have in the blank at that time.  Football.  Nascar.  Family.  Hunting.  Winning.  Money.  Leisure.  The problem is, secondary things are temporal things and whatever temporal things work their way into the blank either leave us behind or we leave them behind.  When we put Christ Jesus in the blank, we have Him now and more of Him in the future.  Joy is the by-product of keeping the Primary Person in the primary place.  He will never leave us nor forsake us.  He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.  He is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth…”  Yet, I confess, I fight most days to keep Christ Jesus in the blank.  So many other things try to play “king of the hill” in my heart.  I have to remember what Paul said, “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  That is the only way the equation works.  It is the nature of the human heart to give in and the nature of Jesus let us try—but He will take His rightful place in the whisper of a prayer, “You are the way, the truth and the life!”