Everybody worships something or someone. Worship may be a new emphasis these days, but it is not new for human beings. We have been doing it since we were created. God did more than create us and tell us to worship him. He created us with a need for worship.
Blaise Pascal, the brilliant French physicist, is the one who is credited with the idea of a God-shaped vacuum in every human heart. That’s because he studied the vacuum and noticed that whenever a vacuum exists something by nature has to rush in and fill it. It seemed to him the perfect picture of how God created us, as constantly pulling in something. Think of yourself as a human spiritual vacuum cleaner – a kind of holy Hoover.
Now the thing about a vacuum is that it will pull in anything that is within its reach. Like me, you may have heard this concept before, and assumed its work was already accomplished in someone’s life by becoming a Christian. God created us with a need for Him — a hole inside us that is in the shape of God so nothing else satisfies that need but Him, and once I respond to Christ, that hole is filled and I am spiritually satisfied. But this description doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t show that we are continuing to need Him. God doesn’t plug up the hole so we can go on and indulge in whatever we like since this foremost thing is taken care of. He has made us with an enduring need to keep filling ourselves up. In other words, we not only have a vacuum, we are vacuums — always on, always sucking up whatever is near the heart.
Whatever you put near the door of your heart is going to be sucked in. Think of the number of things cluttering our spiritual core simply because we have not kept God and his truths close to our hearts at all times. This is why Jesus said we couldn’t serve God and anything else. In order to live the way we were meant to live, we need to keep God as the focus of our worship and nothing else — not pride, or money, or material things, or even people.
Think about what you have near your heart today, and make sure that God is there, because only He can satisfy.
John Fischer The Catch 
Great, great, great. Thanks, John! I needed that big time!
This is brilliant. I’ve always attributed to Paschal a “God-shaped hole” in all of us (probably from the song from a fairly recent contemporary Christian artist – maybe Rebecca St. James?). But it’s not just a hole, it’s a vacuum. Only those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will truly experience being filled. And even that is temporary. We must continue to hunger and thirst for His presence. The holy Hoover in us is always turned on! :^)
When my spiritual vaccum is filled with Jesus there isn’t any space or suction left for anything else.
I like brother Waitsel Smith wud like to “say” Thx Pastor John 4 reminding me of this great truth: “Think about what you have near your heart today, and make sure that God is there, because only He can satisfy.” I need to often ask myself that!
And let’s not forget the hole in God’s heart that we are meant to fill as well. He hungers for our relationship with Him, and every time we deny this to Him, it’s like we have driven another nail into Christ.
You may not remember about four years ago, I passed on a discusion we had at a men’s breakfast in which I brought up the example we have “In the Blood”. Our blood as I understand it has what is call the Hemoglobin, which carries oxigen, via the blood cells to the body’s tissues so that we can funtion as God designed us to. The problem is that toxins such carbon monoxied is like ten times more absorbant than oxigen. So as in spirital things we must deliberately aviod toxins that can harm us. I have wondered, was it this way before Adam’s fall. Could the Hemogloben have resisited the toxins or was it there was no toxins? Great Catch Thank You
Thanks for the message. It’ll be good for me to empty my vacuum bag regularly – sins, toxins(Gary’s comment), all evil thoughts and acts in my life. Failing to do so will creata a blockage which will stop me from being an effective hoover. I’ll need to constantly reflect and check on my life.