The God Shaped Hole

There is a God shaped hole in all of us. There is something missing. In all of my gain, I am still empty. And on and on it goes. The quotes never end. All of the above I suppose have some merit. But I think the fact they have been passed as good theology brings us to a point of, "come let us reason together." I am starting to discover in my own life and in the lives I in which I have had the opportunity to minister, that before we can love God deeper, there is a re-training that needs to take place. Somewhere along the line, we have come to "know" God, and call ourself "children" of His when in fact, God to us, has simply just been compartmentalized into one small section of our life. We think it unreasonable to "pray without ceasing", and "Meditate on His law day and night". "From the rising of the sun to the setting of the same" no longer is our mandate. Rather, we constantly seek times away, and are quite ready to verbalize it as well, that we just have to get away from it all now and then. Ministers, even I, have tragically proclaimed that ' I just want to go some place where i don't have to think about ministry and people'. Of course these times of sabbatical are often needed, but then I stand guilty of not using any portion of them to refresh spiritually, but rather just physically (if that), and have in turn, not sought vacancy of work, but rather vacancy of spirit. Now everyone of us could justify such action. When spoken of before, i was even confronted with a sracastic ring of, "Well what am i suppoised to do, think of God 24/7 and not have anything else?" This remark only makes the point I am trying to make more valid. The thought of being consumed by Him has become completely foreign, and almost absurd. I believe there are a couple of reasons that this has come to be. 1) Because in our teachings/upbringings we have been taught subliminally that only certain things are spiritual acts of worship. I know of a man in our church that cannot, no matter how hard he tries, see his daily job as a an act of worship to God. Why? Well, because we know that worship is a song set on Sunday. The spirit of worship doesn't even carry over to our messages and other sections of our program; so how in the world does it relate to Monday morning? We no lnger understand what it means to "make our life a living sacrifice unto God as a reasonable act of worship". We now "make sundays between 10:40 and 11:15 our living sacrifice unto God". So we have our life, and then our God life. There are parts He touches, and then parts that have nothing to do with Him. When we read our Bible. pray, and witness, those are spiritual GOD times. When we go to the movies, entertain with our family and friends, eat, shop, clean house, and other daily activities, those are OUR times. And then, doing "everything as unto the Lord" is no longer a part of our theology. 2) Because God as the source of everything is extremely inconvenient to the American way of life. I would live to speak universally, but I am pinned to the wall to speak of America. And it has proved a broad enough subject when it comes to behavior. If I could come up with a reason God and His laws are not the point of our thoughts and meditations, or pinpoint a reason His praises are not always on our lips, i would have to say because it simply inconveniences us. God's heart serves now (and really always) as an interruption to man's plans. He becomes not what we live for, but only what we reference when it is convenient. Could i be stretching it too far to use the word 'blasphemous' here? Maybe. But if that is what it takes for even me to understand my own points, then so be it. It is more than the spiritual disciplines that I am talking about being left undone. Even good neighborly acts of charity and care, which we can all say God desires, are eliminated because of our entertainment schedules and personal calendars. We no longer stop to help the man and woman on the side of the road because it will make us late to the party. We can't be a neighbor, even in the physical sense, because we are never at home (the home we spend so many extra man hours to pay for). These aren't specific calls to action, rather points to cover a broader spectrum of evaluation. Never have we been so busy in the temporal and produced so little in the eternal. So it all comes down to this question: How neatly is God tucked away into your "God shaped hole"? Is God just the something you are missing, or is He the everything that puts what you already possess into perspective and into use for His glory? Is He going to be another addition to everything you have gained, or would we be willing to "coutn all our gains as losses for the unsurpassable greatness of knowing Him?"