“What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”
From Pascal’s writings, Pensées. Beautiful, no? And so telling. How often, especially now at the Christmas season do people try to fill the “infinite abyss” with things bought or events or new resolutions about change? Instead, I urge you to look to the manger as that little baby is Immanuel, the One who brings the only thing, Himself, that can fill that abyss. Thanks to my friend Matt Heard for first introducing me to this quote.