Greetings in the name of the God “who can do all things” (Job 42:2 NIV) and in the name of Jesus Christ – THE Crucified and Risen Saviour! What a beautiful Friday! I trust that you have had a great week and have enjoyed all the benefits of the Lord (Psalm 103:1-5) It looks like a grand weekend coming our way and I know you are looking forward to fun and adventure. I will be praying for you today, asking Father to prepare you for an awesome time of worship with your church family.
We have been doing a new devotional book in our home…and it is interesting since for two months the subject matter will deal with ‘Heaven – Our True Home’ and it will explore various passages of scripture. The last four days have focused on the “longing” that dwells in our heart. I have paid close attention because they began with a Bible text that is one of my ‘Top 100’ or so verses: He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV. I have noted this idea manifested in people I have met and it has given me good insight when I have been listening to them share their heart concerns with me. However today I heard God clarify it in a different way.
Perhaps you have heard someone proclaim a quote attributed to Blaise Pascal that says: There is in every man a God-shaped vacuum … or a hole that only God can fill. In fact, I have used it many times to illustrate a point in a sermon or a Bible study. As I read my devotion this morning, God told me that he didn’t create something so wonderful and complex as a human being with a’hole’ or an ’emptiness’ or a ‘vacuum’ in him/her. He told me that what we call a ‘hole-vacuum-emptiness’ is in fact “something”. “Remember” he said, “I have put eternity inside each person…a longing for ‘more’.” We, of course, don’t understand this “something” called eternity. In fact, that is what the verse from Ecclesiastes says: …yet they cannot fathom what God has done…
Leave it to us, mankind, to look at God’s powerful “something” – eternity and label it a ‘hole-vacuum-emptiness’. Let me give you another quote: “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee” Augustine – Confessions. This, I believe, is closer to the truth. Inside of us is a ‘restlessness’, a longing for more in life, and we don’t understand, ‘cannot fathom’, that it is God we need!
Something to think about! Have a blessed weekend!