I was scheduled for this blog a while back. I must be transparent here. Blog writing is not my favorite thing to do. It’s certainly not the worst thing either. I can think of plenty of things in life that I dread. However, this time around, as much as I thought and prayed about it, I kept coming up with nothing. Zilch, nada, zero, not a thing! The due date got closer, and still nothing. I got nothing!
The definition of the word “nothing" is not having anything. For sure that described me to a T. But then the light bulb turned on! I’ll write about nothing!
If we are using the word "nothing" as a noun, the meaning is something that doesn’t exist. For example, the world we live in now was once nothing. It just wasn’t here. But God, who was always here, is an expert in creating something out of nothing. What a beautiful truth this is to me. If we can wrap our brains around these first words in the Bible, we are on our way to holding on to something!
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." (Genesis 1:1-3)
Grabbing onto these words and having faith to believe they are true tells me I can never again say, “I have nothing.” God gave me breath in a beautiful setting to enjoy life to its fullest. God said, “It was good.” God meant it to be good, but of course we read on and on and on of how sin began to destroy what He meant for good.
I could stop right here and you would have gotten your nugget of the day. But Holy Spirit didn’t stop here with me, so I’m going to write on!
I’ll guess that you know at least one or two scriptures from the Bible that talk about nothing. Well, let me rephrase that. Do you know any scriptures that tell us that nothing is a good thing? The word itself seems negative, doesn’t it? Like in Romans 7:18 where Paul says, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” We all struggle with sin, don’t we? We must fight this every day! Paul continues talking about how he knows what is right, but he does wrong anyway. We are human and slaves to sin. There is nothing good in us, but like Paul, we can rely on another power to set us free from our wrong thinking. If the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we can walk in freedom, and nothing becomes something! In the book of Jeremiah, even though he was a prophet, Jeremiah knew he was nothing without the Lord to direct his path and teach him the steps he needed to take daily. Jeremiah asked the Lord to discipline him, but only in due measure and not in anger, or he would be reduced to nothing. Jeremiah recognized he was only something by following God. So, nothing seems negative, but really, it’s positive, and tells us we need our Creator and His Son Jesus along with the help of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Ok, I could stop here and hopefully you would be satisfied by these additional nuggets of truth. But there is more of nothing.
Remember when Jesus was talking to some people along the shore? Peter and his fishing buddies had a very unsuccessful time of fishing. They got nothing. Jesus says to Peter, “Throw in your net on the other side of the boat.” It was a stretch in Peter's mind, but why not? Why not do what the Master says? Tired and worn out, with quite a few onlookers, the men dropped their nets and in a few short minutes, they went from having nothing to having an abundance! What just happened was more than an overload of fish. From then on, these men would never again have nothing! They decided to follow Jesus that day and had everything. Just like Luke says in his account of Jesus’ life, “Nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37) A boat full of fish, a bag of groceries, a job, a baby, a fresh start, a closer connection to Jesus. The list is never ending. Whatever you need, whether material, emotional, or spiritual, God is the God of everything. Being anxious for nothing is the way to go, the way to pray, and the way to live. (Philippians 4:6)
I think by now you are grabbing hold of what I’m trying to say. I don’t really have nothing. Nothing is an absence. Not having. But if the only thing I have is the breath in my lungs, I have something because I also have hope. But, oh, I have much more than that. I have a Savior, a Redeemer, a Provider, a Comforter, a Friend. I may not always know what to write or what to say in a situation. I may not always have enough. But Jesus is enough. There is nothing good in me apart from God. And that gives me everything!
Blessings,
Brinda VanLeuven