Empty Without Him

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing.  It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”

This is a famous quote attributed to Blaise Pascal, but although it's profound, it's not what he wrote. It is, though the essence of what he wrote.

"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

We were created to be in communion with our Heavenly Father. We were created to be satisfied and filled up by being in His Presence. We were created to be in awe of Him. But when we're not, there's a hunger deep, deep in our spirits that is often difficult to identify.

This is especially true of non-Christians. But even we Christians who have accepted Christ and have experienced His amazing Presence get sidetracked. We often get distracted and forget how good it was to be in that glorious position of basking in His Presence. Our minds wander to other things to satisfy that longing. We eat more. We buy houses, cars, clothes, and other material things thinking that somehow our longing will be satisfied. We think a vacation might satisfy or relationships with other people might do it. Getting married. Having kids. Those things often satisfy to a certain point but that deep heart hunger remains. It is crucial to our spiritual health to identify why that hunger is there.

C. S. Lewis suggested it was a hunger that could never be totally satisfied here on earth. We were made for Heaven and until we get there we will continually have a sense that something’s missing.

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes:

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

I fully agree with Lewis, in that our deepest longings will only be satisfied in heaven, but God does indeed meet those needs here on earth; not fully but with such intensity, we get a clear picture of the glories to come. And although His Presence deeply satisfies, it also leaves us longing for more.

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13‭-‬14)

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4‭-‬7)