There is something inside every Christian that causes us to realize that this world is not enough. There is nothing here that we can latch on to that fills that forever empty spot in us. The constant longing for something we can’t even describe. That is the often called “God shaped hole”, though I really think that term does not explain it well enough. It is much more than just a lacking in our lives. We thirst for something far greater than this world can satisfy as a result, we are disappointed. We go from one false promise to another, grabbing up things, jobs and people in great quantities only to find they do not fill that need in us. We are always dissatisfied. What we need to fill that hole, that lack, is where our true identity resides. It is the essences of who we are as people and as children of God. Once we realize that this world is not going to fill that hole, fix our relentless longing, we can turn to God and let him have His way with us.

Ah, if only we would stop fighting, pulling and trying to do things our way like a toddler fighting his father. “No I do it!” that is the battle of our earthly lives, that is the struggle of this world where we will learn our lessons of what it means to be Holy. That is how we know we are in the royal family of God. When the struggle stops and when we surrender to God that is the sweet spot of the Christian life. That is when we are in His presence. That is where peace lives.

Our desire to have that peace and our constant search for it is what makes us human. Our surrender to it, when we stop looking at this life to fill it, is complete acceptance of God.

~Lori O’Gara