4.23.2008

emptiness

This is where you are. This is a great place of emptiness. "Empty space tends to create fear...but filling up every empty corner and occupying every empty time...becomes more oppressive than revealing."

Not long before, the word was "emerging." Emerging into...what? I did not expect this. I thought it would be into something grand and glorious. What is fulfillment? and why do we always think we will find it around the next turn? Fulfillment.

In coming to this place, I almost asked God to fill it. But what sort of prayer is that? Is it not just another way of escape? If we can come to the place where we allow ourselves to see the emptiness and space, would it not be a disservice of God to take that from us? He does not fill it like some "God-shaped hole." No, it is as a voice echoes through a great hall. It is filled with a presence, but it is still quite empty.

Do not fear that word, empty. Every one of us has greater emptiness in us than we allow ourselves to know. See it as an opportunity, a greater space to grow into. Just as a family grows it needs more space, so does your soul. Finding the emptiness is finding the space to grow. If you do not let fear fill that space with any sort of distraction. To be there, to take it in, to accept it and God by your side--not a distant force that swells in the recesses to make you feel better. There you know him. And there you become something new. And the place becomes something grander than anything brand new.

3 comments:

  1. luke. i cannot tell you how much i needed to hear this word, especially right now. thank you friend.

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  2. i've been exploring emptiness as well...great post :-)

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  3. wow... never thought of it in that way... nice post!

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