Nothing

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. (Genesis 1:1, 2 MSG)

Nothing.  It's a word most often used in dispair or boredom or weariness.  "What do you have?...Nothing."  "What are you doing?...Nothing."  But "nothing" is actually a pretty exciting word.  Nothing is what God works best with.  God created the universe from nothing.  God placed babies is barren (nothing) wombs.  And God used a few (nothing) loaves and fishes to feed 5 thousand.  "Nothing" is full of God possibilities.

I think that too often our problem is that we try to come to God with too much.  We have the work half done and then ask for God's help.  We know what we want and then ask God to help us achieve it.  We think we can't come to God until we fix our own brokeness first.  We have it wrong.  God wants our "nothing."  He wants our emptiness and brokeness and start-from-scratchness.  I have had my greatest ministry successes when I didn't have a clue what I was doing and had to rely totally on God... teaching Sunday school as a new church goer...starting a drama/clown ministry and writing scripts.  I came to God with nothing, and he filled me with everything.

When Jesus tells us we must die to ourselves and be born again he is telling us that God wants us to become nothing so that he can recreate us.  We must empty ourselves and let God start from scratch.  It's powerful and exciting stuff!  We just need to let go of what we think we already have and let God give us what we need.

Father,
Help us to start from nothing each and every day so that we may live the exciting and abundant lives you want for each of us.  Amen.