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Where would we be without holes? Where would people be without seven holes in their heads? If it weren’t for your seven holes, you couldn’t eat or taste or smell or hear orsee or even breathe. And actually, you’ve got lots more holes than that, because every little pore in your skin is a hole. Without those little pores, your skin couldn’t breathe or sweat. You wouldn’t have any hair, either, because every hair grows in a little hole called a follicle.
Holes are almost an endless subject, because there are so many of them. It seems likeeverything is composed of holes. Your whole body is full of holes. Your blood vessels are holes, your lungs are holes, and your heart’s got big holes in it for the blood to flow in and out. Your navel is a hole, without which you wouldn’t have been able to be a baby. We’re really full of holes.
The whole world is so full of holes. If it weren’t for holes, nobody could even live.There wouldn’t be any pretty trees and flowers and vegetables and fruits, because they all grow in holes in the ground and they’re full of holes. The sap in the trees flows through holes, and the juice in the leaves flows through holes. Almost everything is made of holes—mostly holes with just a little bit of something around them.
What is a house but a hole that you live in? And if your house didn’t have holes for windows, you couldn’t look out or let the light and the air in. It would be all dark. There wouldn’t be any taps for water, and you’d get awful thirsty. And there couldn’t be any sink or toilet, so you couldn’t even go to the toilet or wash the dishes.
There wouldn’t be any stoves to cook the food, because the gas goes through little pipes with holes in them. And worst of all, the house wouldn’t even have a door, so you couldn’t get into it in the first place, or if you were inside, you couldn’t get out.
How many holes can you think of that are useful holes?
So you should never feel bad if you feel like nothing or a big zero, because the world is full of holes, and there wouldn’t be any world if it weren’t for holes! Just think, if it weren’t for a hole, a 10 would only be a 1. And if you add another hole or zero, it makes the one a100. And if you add another zero hole, it makes it a thousand. Add three more holes, and it makes a million. So just a little old one can be a million if you just add six holes—six nothings, six zeros—because a zero’s nothing but a hole with a line around it. But it takes lots of zeros to make millions.
All circles are holes, and the whole world is made of circles called atoms made of more circles called neutrons, electrons, and protons, which are nothing but electricity. Nobody knows what electricity is but God. Nobody’s ever seen it, and they don’t even know what it looks like, because it’s invisible. It’s just plain energy—nothing that’s something.
In fact, the earth is a hollow sphere full of fire, and every now and then the fire comes out through holes called volcanoes. All the seas are great big holes in the ground full of water, and all the lakes and springs and the wells are holes too. We get coal out of holes in the ground called mines, and diamonds and jewels and all kinds of minerals, like gold and silver and copper and iron and tin, and all these useful and valuable things which we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for holes.
The whole world is a great big ball of holes. In fact, almost everything is mostly made up of nothing. The whole universe is mostly space, mostly nothing but a great big hole, except for a few tiny particles called planets and stars, suns and moons and things like that. But they’re very, very small things compared to all that nothing called space, which is so big we don’t even know where it all ends. So much nothing!
God must like holes, He made so many of them—and He likes to fill them all. The Bible says God even hung the world on nothing.1 In fact, He says He made it out of nothing,2 and He “calls things that are not as though they were.”3 So don’t feel bad if youfeel like nothing, because there wouldn’t be anything without nothing.
In fact, with God, nothing is impossible!4 If you can believe in God, everything is possible, because He makes everything out of nothing—even you and me.5 We’re nothing, and we’re impossible except for God. He takes our nothing and makes it something. Our nothing can be anything with God! Nothings aren’t anything without God, because He’s like the circle around our nothing that makes it something. With God all around you, even your nothing can be something. In fact, you can be almost anything, because God makes everything out of nothing—nothing surrounded by Him.
So surround yourself with God’s something and you can become a very useful and important little hole—nothing surrounded by God, out of which He made everything. There are square holes and round holes, all kinds of holes, and it takes all kinds of pegs to fill them. So whatever kind of peg you are, there’s a hole somewhere where you’ll fit. And no matter what kind of hole you are, God’s got you pegged! There’s something for you somewhere—whether you’re round or square.
There’s no end to nothing. There’s always an end to something, but there’s never an end to nothing. So if you’ll just be nothing, you can even be bigger than something.
The poet Emily Dickinson6 once wrote:
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there is a pair of us!
They'd banish us, if they knew.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!7
Are you a hole? Then God’s got something for you. Folks that aren’t holes can’t have anything, because they already think they’re something when they’re really nothing. The Bible says, “He has satisfied the hungry heart, but the rich He has sent empty away.”8 So be glad you’re a hole, so God can make something out of nothing and fill you up.
God loves holes, and He made lots of holes so He could fill them up. So if you’re a hole, God can fill you up. If you’re nothing, you can be full of something. You see, if a hole is so full already, God can’t put anything in it. Everything falls out when He tries to put something in it, because it’s already so full of something that it can’t hold anything more.
And you know what love is? It’s a hole that needs to be filled, plus something to fill it with, like you and me and Jesus.
Jesus even called Himself a hole: the door.9 He said, I am the door! I am the hole you have to get through to get into My house, and I am the only hole you can get through, and there isn’t any other hole you can go through and get in but by Me.10
Did you know that God is very holy? So let’s be holy too, okay? If you’re unholy, it’s because you’re not holey enough. If you’re not a hole, you can’t hold or behold or have theHoly Spirit. So let’s all be holes and holy, and then we’ll all be holy holes.
Are you one of God’s holes full of nothing so He can fill you with something? Let’s all be holy holes for His Holiness—Jesus. “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty.” Amen? An “amen” is a hole full of praise for a hole full of Jesus, and that’s the whole idea.
Originally published April 1973. Updated and republished July 2012.
Read by Simon Peterson.
1 Job 26:7.
2 Genesis 1; Hebrews 11:3.
3 Romans 4:17.
4 Luke 1:37.
5 Mark 9:23.
6 1830–1886.
7 Adapted.
8 Luke 1:53.
9 John 10:9.
10 John 14:6.
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