January 18, 2012 at 12:12 PM

Last Friday, January 13, our pyjama-clad students and their teachers joined together for the first chapel of 2012. (You might be wondering about the pyjamas; they do not exactly project the image of a school intent on academic excellence!  And yet on this Pyjama Day, a school-wide spirit day that saw near-to-100% participation, the students were challenged to approach chapel and their learning as if it were one of those opposite days - a day to be dressed outwardly in sleepwear, but to be inwardly alert and engaged and active in the day’s activities.) Mr. Peter Bulthuis, principal at Unity Christian High School in Barrie and guest speaker for chapel that day, engaged the students and teachers with singing and a message on the beatitude in Matthew 5:6: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

The students were challenged to fill themselves with what is good for them – healthy relationships, kind words and actions, healthy food for the body and soul. They were cautioned to avoid filling themselves with ‘wrongteousness’ (which just sounds wrong!) – hanging around with a poor choice of friends, speaking and acting in ways that are unkind, filling up on junk food for the body and soul that does not satisfy.

This has caused me to ponder the line I once heard at a Donut Man-themed VBS about there being a God-sized hole in all of us that only God can fill. All our hungering and thirsting will be in vain if we try to fill ourselves with the wrong things. Seeking after our own self-centred interests may lead to temporary satisfaction, but eventually we find ourselves hungry again. Instead, God invites us through the words of the psalmist to “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). He’s the One through Christ who alone can truly fill that ‘hole.’ And yet, is there really a God-sized hole in all of us? Is that the shape of it? Or are we shaped after God, having been made in His image? A good question!