I am out of town this week, enjoying the sites, smells, and especially the weather, of fall. For Teach Me Jesus Thursday today, I thought I’d share with you an activity from the archives that I’ve done with my boys concerning the “God Shaped Hole” in our hearts.

“And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). This is something I talk and pray about with my children all the time. There is much in our children’s life that fight to take up the space in their heart reserved for God alone. How many adults struggle with greed, pride, addictions, and more because they are seeking to fill what Pascal referred to as a “God-shaped hole” in their heart.

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” Blaise Pascal

We need to help our children understand that their sinful nature seeks to fill the “God Shaped Hole” with anything else other than God. We also need to teach them that loving anything more than God will only make them feel empty. God is the only one who can fill all their longings. Only he can meet their deepest desires and make them complete. And until God has first place in their heart, they will live restless lives. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” (St. Augustine)

Plumb has a great song about this concept that I have had my kids listen to (God-Shaped Hole)

“There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us
and the restless soul is searching
There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us
And it’s a void only He can fill”

I have also had my children do a craft activity to help them think through and see all the various things that we try to fill our hearts with. For this activity, I traced the top half of my son onto a large piece of paper. We drew a large hole shape and filled it with words and pictures of things that people put in their heart instead of God. We talked about each idol and why it might be tempting to love it more than God. And we talked about how only because of what Jesus did at the cross can we be free to love and worship God alone. Only through Christ and the power of his Spirit can we keep second things from becoming first things in our heart.

For a smaller version, these two cutouts of people have words describing idols in the one on the left and the one on the right is what is produced in our heart when God is the center.