Musician has a cure to fill the emptiness

It’s no surprise that activities like video streaming, baking, craft making and home workouts have experienced a considerable uptick in popularity since Canada went into quarantine.

But Catholic speaker and acclaimed musician Chris Bray says that although we are justified to be thankful for these pastimes, as the COVID-19 pandemic presses on they are insufficient and leave us searching for something more to fill the longing in our hearts.

It was this realization that led him to offer encouragement to the homebound in a recent video posted to his Facebook page.

“I think what what we tend to do is we turn to things like Netflix and for the first week or two, that’s exciting,” Bray said in a five-minute video recorded at his home in Aylmer, Ont. “Then we try and look for something else when we realize that Netflix isn’t going to save us from these feelings of emptiness.

“We turn to something else like the best banana bread recipe and it’s so good that we make it again and again. We’re making banana bread like four times a day and we don’t know what to do with it. Our freezer’s full of it. After a while, that banana bread that was so good, it’s starting to taste a little old and bland and we need something else to fill that hunger.”

He also points out the even the best fitness programs leave an emptiness, a void that only God can truly fill.

“We’re feeling empty, we’re feeling hungry like we have a thirst for something more and we can’t really articulate it,” said the husband and father of five daughters. “We make the mistake of almost enslaving ourselves to things like social media or Netflix or making banana bread or fitness or whatever it is, but here’s the thing, none of those things can save us. Only God can save us.”

The guitarist and vocalist has close to 40,000 followers on Facebook. He spends a lot of time touring the country, but now he is thankful for the time at home to bond with his daughters, who range in age from three to 11.

He says his motivation for recording the video came from a place of gratefulness and a deep reflection on a void he has been feeling that has kept him up at night.  

“I was thinking, at the end of the day, maybe God wants to use this circumstance to kind of wake us up to what He has for us,” said Bray in a phone interview. “It was a recognition that no matter how fit we are, no matter how much dinner rolls we make or whatever it’s never going to fulfill us. We’re looking for something that’s eternal and that’s Jesus.”

Bray has been using this down time to record new music. He released his latest single — “Closer and Closer” — in June. He says it reflects the journey he and many others have been taking with God throughout this quarantine.

“I wrote it being inspired by this whole situation,” said Bray. “God wants to use this season of trial to draw us closer and closer to Him.”