Void

So it's been an incredibly long time since I have written here, and for that I do apologize. Life has it's way of throwing twists and turns at us. It just so happens that my poetry blog had taken precedence over my theology blog. In a way, this is telling to some events in my life. Afterall...

Theology attempts to find the answers, theopoetics attempts to find the questions...

That being said, I do occasionally have these thoughts and ideas and beliefs pop up in my head which I have recently been attempting to communicate as poetry. Sometimes this does not work so well! So I am going to actually write here for a change. Try to contain yourselves.

Did you ever have a word jump off the page at you? Something that just grabs you in an odd way? Today, I was reading some web page, and four, simple letters caught my attention. They just jumped off the page like they were in size 72 point font.

Void.

What does it mean to be "void"? It is an incredible concept when you think about it. In a programming language, to return a value of "void", it means that "nothing" is returned. There is no chance of anything every being returned from that portion of the program, so don't even try. It's similar to the concept of "NULL" or "NIL" in that it represents absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Null. Nil. Void.

I doubt it's a concept we can really wrap our head around.

And yet, that's exactly how the bible starts out. It starts out letting us first know that God has and is always with us. He made the "beginning", and he was there. But then, right after he got things started, he noticed something. What did God notice? Well, he found himself a little piece of nothing. The bible says that "the earth was formless and void". Empty. There was absolute nothingness. No light, no dark, no gas, liquid or solid. Nothing. Absolutely nada.

Can you see it?

No. You can't, because we can't even fathom a lack of everything. Perhaps a black hole is the closest thing we can get to this in physics.

But the interesting thing is that a story about creation, starts at a unique place... the lack of everything. Out of "nothingness" is how God creates everything around us. Somehow he takes the nothing, and creates at least something out of it. Simple at first, but it's the basis of everything we know... God created light, and dark. That was the beginning. That was the "bang". That was the Genesis. That was the spark that started this whole universe expanding to fill the void. This was the moment in time that began the creation process that lingers even until today.

God still creates you know. He never stopped. The universe is still expanding. The human understanding keeps seeking inward. Babies are still being born and cells keep on reproducing and living. Even the things we don't comprehend keep working and living. The interesting thing isn't that God is still the Creator. The interesting thing is what he creates with. Nothing.

So when God comes to earth in the form of Jesus, he starts doing what is natural to him: reconciling, creating and healing. But what does he start with? Well, just like God, he starts with nothing. He heals those who have faith, those who have emptied themselves of the world and who believe that God can do something amazing. And that's exactly what Jesus does. He heals them with absolutely nothing. He does it through a touch, a word, and some dirt and spit. When people are at the end of their rope, Jesus is there. He fixes the broken, but he fixes it through and with the void.

Void. It's what we should become. If we want to have God in our lives, if we want to see the creative power of God, if we want healings and provision, then we need to reduce ourselves to the point that we become "nothing" and invite God to hover over us, and to make something with us. We must be that void. If we want God to enter our hearts, we must clear out the clutter and the stuff that we have placed in that void, and to invite God into the void. God always fills a void.

So the point I encourage you to reflect upon is becoming the void. We need to empty ourselves completely of ourselves. Some of us are self-righteous. Some of us rely on our abilities. Some of us claim to know God, but are unwilling to lay down our own abilities. Some of us want God in our lives and wonder where he has gone. He is right next to you. He is inside of you, filling up the void.

You want more of God?

Make the void bigger.

But rid of the clutter, and the junk in your heart that prevents you from making a difference.