Blaise Pascal, famed mathematician, stated “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.”
We’ve often heard this expression paraphrased as a
“God-sized hole” – and perhaps pictured a single hole. A gaping wound left open which only God can
fill through salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
When I saw this rock, God whispered in my heart that perhaps this God-sized need is not a single hole, but myriad tiny craters.
Pits where other children hurt our feelings when we were young. Holes of
neglect from our parents. Chasms of loneliness and need. Canyons of betrayal.
God fills each one. Not all in a moment at the second of
salvation, but slowly and steadily over the course of our life. Each hurt we have experienced, He uncovers and reveals and beckons us to turn it over to him.
To lay it before Him as an offering, entrusting Him to make it right, even if
we will never know that He has. And as we leave it on the altar and walk away
from it, He fills in that hollow with His love and His mercy and His
forgiveness and makes us WHOLE.
