Things that Don’t Exist but We Still Name: Holes

 

This week I thought I would continue the investigation into things we name that don’t exist. I this installment we investigate holes. Oxford Dictionary defines a hole as a hollow place in a solid body or surface. Holes are virtually everywhere. We see them in walls and ceilings. We often get holes in out roads. While I am aggravated when I put a hole in my jeans, others buy their jeans with ready-made holes fresh from the factory. Holes can be figurative, like “a hole in my heart” or “there’s a hole in your argument”. They are all around us, staring at us, mocking us, daring us to fill them. And we do. No one like a pothole in the road. We patch the tiny holes in our walls before we paint. We fill in holes in our yards. Take just 5 minutes and count every hole you see. The result will be surprising.

And yet, they really exist of NOTHING. The whole idea of a hole is that something is missing. We have named another nothing.

Oddly enough, life would be terrible without them. Try sewing on a button with no holes. Our houses would be unusable without entry holes. We wouldn’t have sports like basketball, golf or corn hole without them. Even our bodies have necessary holes. Imagine breathing without nose or mouth holes. Seems like a large problem. Our ear canals are holes. Without them we would be almost totally deaf. We use them for drains and the inside of pipes. It’s what makes our bread airy and light. And donuts? What would they be without the hole? Yes, a roll.

We were created with a virtual hole in our souls. Mankind has spent billions of dollars and countless hours searching for something to fill it. Yet it is a God shaped hole. Money, things, friends, or activities may fill it temporarily, but in the end, it’s still meant for God to fill. Blaise Pascal has been quoted as saying “There is a God–shaped vacuum in the heart of each man, which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”  Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end". Now that’s one hole I’m glad to have.  The real question is, is HE in You?