There’s a hole in the heart. And it’s not a small tear, it’s an opening that gets bigger and bigger the more we try to fill it with accumulations, accomplishments, and accolades. It starts with legitimate needs that at first can form a framework for becoming an adult, things like discovering our gifts, getting an education, finding a place to live, obtaining transportation, cultivating friendships, looking for a life partner. But, as Richard Rohr says in his life-changing book, Falling Upward, if we don’t begin to fill that container with something eternal, we begin to fill it with things that are not.
Sooner or later we begin to discover that void is God-shaped, and if we don’t fill it with God himself, it becomes a gnawing hunger that is omnivorous. It can eventually eat everything we thought would fulfill our needs. And this hunger is universal. It might have an American appetite, but the hunger is universal. It may seek to be or follow American idols, or build castles in American suburbs, or subdue its demands with designer style or a growing internet following, but the hunger is not satisfied, the chasm gets more immense, and the appetite for substitutes becomes more insatiable.
Eventually, the cavity begins to devour the framework. The vocations begin to unravel, the fabric of marriage and family life begins to fray, charm no longer guarantees attention at the table, and bit by bit the anchor will not hold.
What does it take to get our attention? The glorious news is that all along the goodness of God has been pursuing us like the “hound of heaven” who will not “rest or let us rest until we are finally perfect,” as C.S. Lewis so aptly put it. We can spend life running away from God’s love; we can wear out ourselves filling the void with all kinds of substitutes and addictions, but finally we can turn around and fall exhausted into the arms of the Love that will not let us go.
All the scattered pieces of our lives will finally come together, and the puzzle will begin to fall into place. As a person, as a culture, as a country, the only solution to the gaping emptiness is surrender to the One who has been chasing after us the whole time.
