Formless and Empty

"Now the earth was formless and empty..."

This is the first description of the earth that a reader of the Holy Bible will encounter. Formless. Empty. The beginning of the story of our world as we know it. Very shortly after this awe-inspiring description we read a dramatic telling of how God basically threw drama into that emptiness. Churning waves. Islands and volcanoes jutting out of the oceans. Life bursting forth from the soil and out of every forest and lake. And then us humans, so small in the grand scheme of things, were somehow given a great deal of attention. After all, if you were drawing a portrait of yourself I bet you would really focus on the details. You would want to look as good as possible. And we are told that God made us in His own image. So, for the most part, when the time came for our creation God was making a self-portrait to some extent. I had this scenario running through my mind this morning. God made something out of nothing. And He apparently did it in a pretty short amount of time. And before long (at least according to God's watch) the earth was no longer formless and no longer empty. It was full of life, movement, danger, adventure, pleasure, and pain.

Sometimes in the dark times of my life I have been guilty of believing that God was not able to fix whatever loneliness or darkness was inside of me. Or perhaps I was guilty of believing that He didn't really want to fix it. Darkness can be so deceiving. You hear a voice, but you don't know from where it is spoken. And so it is when we are in darkness. Our own despairing voices begin to speak in our minds, and we easily confuse them with the voice of God. We begin to feel that God is no longer speaking a voice of hope to our dark hearts. We believe the lost voice in the darkness that calls us to despair, and so easily we may follow it deeper into the empty black space. A friend recently told me that in complete darkness even the flicker of a small candle could light the way. What an intriguing truth. In that sense, the darker the darkness, the smaller the amount of light that is necessary to bring vision to the path. I bet you see the metaphor here. Perhaps though we despair, in that desperation such a small glimmer of hope may keep us taking one more step towards the beaming sun that awaits. That glimmer may be in a phone call to a loving friend of family member. Perhaps it is in the opportunity to help another soul even among our own tears.

God created a world full of life and light from what was once "formless and empty." And yet, so often I doubt that He can bring hope and life into me. How small is my heart compared to this great earth of ours? If only God would breath into me, perhaps the flame of the candle would ignite. Maybe life would begin to rise up, and the adventure in my own heart would begin to play out its dramatic story.

Ever felt formless and empty? It might be the best place to be. God seems to like making something out of nothing. Light that one little candle. Take one more step toward the light.