A God-Shaped Vacuum

vacuumShag carpets.  Do you remember them?  We had them throughout our house when I was growing up.  We had red shag carpet in the family room, with white furniture.

Have ever raked carpets?  One of my jobs was to rake the rugs.  We had a specific shag rake for the job.  The shag was so long I would rake the strands of carpet like I was combing hair.  It seems crazy now, but back then it was the thing to do.

Sadly, what was typically under the carpets was beautiful hardwood floors.  In the 70’s everyone seemed to be putting wall-to-wall carpeting over their hardwood floors.  Crazy.

I wouldn’t doubt if this was the beginning of the golden age of vacuums.  Vacuum sales was big business: Kirby, Hoover, Electrolux, and Bissel were some of the big brands.  We had a Kirby.  It was a very heavy vacuum for a skinny 89 pound 13 year old.  I got very adept at using my foot to assist my arm in pushing it forward.

Once a week every Thursday night I had to vacuum the carpets.  Man could that Kirby suck.  Anything that got remotely close to the intake would be sucked up into the bag never to be seen again…

It was around this time I got introduced to the term “a God-shaped vacuum”.  This was a common term used in 70’s evangelizing to describe the inherent desire in all of mankind to know God.  We have been created by God with a void that only He can fill.  We try to fill this void with the things of this world, but nothing satisfies – only God Himself can satisfy.

The term “a God-shaped vacuum” is widely attributed to Blaise Pascal, the famous mathematician.   However, he never said it.  I think the term is a brilliant wordsmithing of this section of his book entitled “Pensees”:

“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”

“This infinite abyss can be filled only with…God Himself.”

Every man, every woman has been created to be in relationship with God, our Creator, our Father.  We have been hard-wired to know Him.  The essence of who we are will always be incomplete without Him.  The very purpose of our creation is to be in relationship with God, so it is no wonder we feel less than whole, we feel incomplete, we feel empty, we feel a void if we are not in relationship with Him.

Pascal described this incompleteness as a craving; a helplessness; an infinite abyss; an empty print or trace of the true happiness we once had before sin created a chasm, a schism between mankind and God.  Would it not make sense that creation would feel hopelessly incomplete without relationship with the Creator?

I believe the God-shaped vacuum in each of us never stops desiring God.  Certainly when we are born again we become a new creation by the profound work of the Holy Spirit – our dry and thirsty soul is overwhelmed by the love of God.  We come alive in a way have never been before.

However, I believe we continue to crave more of God.  We hunger and thirst for more of Him, and we always will this side of heaven.  When we choose to walk independently apart from God and do not feed on His Word and drink deeply of His life and love, we feel the depth of our being longing for more of the infinite.  Nothing but God Himself can satisfy.

Do you look for life in the things of this world?  Has success, or stuff, or sex, or innumerable other stimulants caught your heart?  There is a God-shaped vacuum inside of you that refuses to be filled by nothing but God Himself.

Psalm 63:1

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

Ephesians 2:13

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Romans 6:22, 23  (The Message)

“But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

John 15:5-7  (The Message)

“I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon.”

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