“He [God] has also set eternity in the human
heart…” Ecclesiastes 3:11
“You have made us for yourself, O God, and our
hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
– St. Augustine 1
“What else does this craving, and this
helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of
which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain
to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the
help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this
infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in
other words by God himself.”
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII(425)
We search for so many things in this world to fill a void that we all
have.
We fill it with money, cars, our house, women, men, friends, basketball,
drugs, alcohol, work, music, our family, and even church itself.
Yet without a genuine relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we are
empty.
Many will deny this until they are so empty that they cannot go on.
From there they look up or they will give up.
Recently, I attended my 30th high school reunion and there I
saw some people that I saw in bars 20 years ago.
They are still doing the same things like the drinking, the pursuing,
and the emptiness.
Outwardly, they look like they are having the time of their life, yet
when you get on Facebook, you will see that they have been divorced multiple
times, they have children by many different women, and they have a DUI or two.
Yet, on Friday, there he is again with a drink in his hand and a smile
on his face pretending to fill the God void.
Without God, we continually search for meaning and fulfillment and we
may actually have it for a short amount of time, but it disappears; too
quickly.
The filling of the void by God will drive you in a way that you no
longer feel fulfilled by the world, but by living for Jesus; being his hands
and feet and doing the work he created you to do.