By Stuart Knechtle
Many today look for something to fill the god/shaped hole. Some turn to things like a drug trip or some other thrill. Others turn to family. Whatever one turns to is ultimately painful if it is not God because it’s only God that can fill the god-shaped hole.
If you idolize your kids and turn them into mini gods then you will probably live vicariously through them expecting to full all the things perhaps you didn’t have the chance to. If kids are what you are filling your god-shaped hole with that will ultimately crush them and create a tenuous relationship at best.
When God fills that hole we have a transcendent source that will never leave us and is the only thing that can handle the weight of our expectations and desires. When God is God we can love family better by allowing them to mess up and loving them in such a way where we encourage them to work hard but don’t firm our very identit around them.
We fill that God shaped hole by praising and thanking God every day for our kids, our careers etc. Archbishop Templeton said your religion is what you are in your solitude. So you know you’ve filled that God shaped hole with God if you most naturally think of him more than other things when you are in solitude driving or in the shower or on a run by yourself. If you most naturally thing about anxieties then that anxiety is the God.
Let’s praise, thank, and think about God more often to fill that hole with Him and the endless joy that he gives us rather than a substitute that cannot hold the weight of our greatest desires.
Stuart Knechtle is Pastor at Grace Community Church
