The God-Shaped Hole

I drink coffee to help me focus. I do not drink coffee to wake up or help me stay awake. I just realized that coffee sucks for the later purpose. At the moment, I am sitting in my office and I am very tired/sleepy. I haven't gotten much sleep, well lets just say for the past three nights, and its 10 AM and I need a nap. Anyway, in the middle of a book that I am reading, I closed my eyes for a moment because of my level of sleepiness and realized that there was no way that I was going to sleep after my two cups of morning coffee. That's when it hit me that coffee keeps me awake but it doesn't keep my body from being sleepy. Coffee doesn't fulfill my real need for sleep. Coffee can never meet my body's need for rest. It can only mask my true need.

As I was contemplating this, I thought about how just like we as Americans try to substitute coffee for sleep, we also try to substitute so many other things for our deep need for God. We seek out so many other things to fill up our "God-shaped hole" in our lives. Then just like me and needing sleep but not being able to sleep because of my morning coffee, we think we are fulfilled and our "coffee" (aka, stuff) takes the edge off our need for God. But even when we seek other things and we seem satisfied with all our toys and pleasures, there is a nagging under-current in our lives telling us that we are desperately missing out on something deeper, something more important, our true need, God!

It is my prayer today that I will embrace my desperate need for God and seek Him with my whole heart and stop running after all the "coffee" that the world has to offer.


"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5