Have you ever heard this?
“People who don’t know God have a God-shaped hole inside them that only He can fill. That’s why everyone who isn’t a Christian is always chasing something. Our job as Christians is to bring people to church so they can find out what’s missing in their lives, and get God into their God-shaped hole.”
The God-shaped hole.
I think we’re looking in the wrong place for the God-shaped hole. The God shaped hole isn’t inside people.
The God shaped hole is people.
It’s us.
I think the God-shaped hole is where ever God wills something to exist, and it doesn’t exist. The God-shaped hole is the place where God longs to be, but where there’s actually no evidence of him. I think wherever God’s will is, and that will goes unheeded, unpracticed, unfulfilled, unheard or undone, there is a God-shaped hole. It’s when God’s people don’t do what God’s will is.
The hole isn’t something that’s inside people who don’t know God. The God-shaped hole is you, when you choose not to act upon God’s will for others, but instead act only upon God’s will for yourself.
Where God wills a change, and there is no change, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills wholeness, and no hand brings healing, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills a hungry belly filled, and a hungry belly remains, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills a family restored, and a family stays broken, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills an addict be freed, and an addict remains ensnared, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills a child be protected, and a child is abused, there is the God-shaped hole.
When God wills a kind word or deed, and the word remains unspoken, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills acceptance, yet judgment remains, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills the prodigals joyous homecoming, yet the prodigal finds the door closed and bolted, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills community, and yet people see only each others differences, there is the God-shaped hole.
Where God wills love, and yet there are envy, boasting and pride, anger, rudeness, records of wrongs, and delight in evil, there, right there, is the God-shaped hole.
The God-shaped hole is not in the person who doesn’t know God and acts to relieve his suffering. It’s in the one who knows God, yet never seeks to relieve others.
It’s time we stopped looking outside of ourselves for the problems of this world. We are the problems of this world. If we see others as bereft, because they don’t have God, and do nothing to solve the world’s problems, what does that make us, when we do have God, and yet we do nothing also? Where is the God-shaped hole…really?
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