hunger for heaven

Everyone who has ever walked the face of the earth has been made by God for a relationship with God. Because our rebellion and sin has severed that relationship, there remains a deep yearning inside each human being to have that relationship restored. Whether our teenagers know what to call it or not, Blaise Pascal described this universal hole in the soul as a god-shaped vacume. Alister McGrath describes Pascal’s model as “a God-shaped emptiness within us, which only God can fill. We may try to fill it in other ways and with other things. Yet one of the few certainties of life is that nothing in this world satisfies our longing for something that is ultimately beyond this world.” While it may at times seem like it isn’t so, your teenager is no different than anyone else. His great need is to have this God-shaped emptiness filled by God. Even when they don’t recognize it as such, we can rest in the assurance that their hunger is for heaven, and our calling is to point them to the Cross.

As we prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day, I thought it would be good to spend our week looking at some helpful parenting truths. Today’s truth is this: Our teenagers were made to be in a relationship with God. Because our rebellion has severed our relationship with God, there remains a deep yearning inside each human being to have that relationship restored. Blaise Pascal described this universal hole in the soul as a god-shaped vacuum. Teenagers are no different than anyone else. Their great need is to have this God-shaped emptiness filled by God. If you listen and look closely, you’ll see and hear that their music, films, books, magazines, and very lives are crying out for spiritual wholeness. Each of us can look directly in the eyes of the teenagers we know and love and be certain that this is their reality. Each one hungers for heaven. Parents, this should spur us on to constantly and consciously serve as signposts, pointing kids to the cross and their true home.