This semester I’ve had a continual conversation with a student about her God-shaped blank and the things she is trying to stuff in it.

Her “stuffing” is not working, and I told her that if she tries to fill her blank with anything other than Christ, it, too, will fail. I shared that my own methods of filling my “blank”—though they are more respectable than hers—are no more successful.

Christ is the only one, the ONLY one, who fills all in all.

All in all—not a partial filling, a complete one. I used to envision the God-shaped blank as a gaping hole, a wound made by a pike axe or lance. It was either filled or not. I see it differently now. There may still be a huge blank, but that’s not all. I am pierced all over, full of holes, small and large. The psalmist says, “Show me my lapses and errors, reveal my hidden faults, search me thoroughly.” I find that as God fills one hole, He makes me conscious of many others.

I am like a sponge, as much hole as connective fiber, and I’ve filled many of my pores with garbage. But Christ says HE is the ultimate filler—of all my needs, my lacks, my shortcomings. He can—and wants to—supply such fullness that He flushes out the garbage and saturates me with Himself.

And this over-filling (like the “cup running over” in the Psalms) has a beautiful effect not only on me but on those around me. So often I serve others out of my holes, out of my lack or for negative reasons—so that others think better of me, so my children don’t whine, so…–but Christ wants to fill me so full that He spills over and blesses others with His overflow.