In order to gain more space I put some small empty boxes into a large empty box. I now have more room. However, I am confused for I put emptiness into emptiness to gain more emptiness. Now my emptiness is more organized and compact leaving me with emptiness to fill with I hope something other than more emptiness. Now all of this is what I feel like sometimes after a class. My lectures are sometimes empty of originality and I dump them into the empty minds of my students with no fear of cluttering their thought processes since all I did was organize some academic emptiness.
However, emptiness is not nothing. Emptiness is possibilities. Emptiness is an invitation to fill with something meaningful. God saw the emptiness of space and filled it with us. Isaiah 45:18, “For this is what the LORD says– he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited– he says: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
God saw the emptiness of men’s lives after sin had drained the purity and goodness. Genesis 6:5, “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” He could have abandoned us to our emptiness but chose because of His great love to fill us with His Spirit and all the emptiness of the universe with His grace. (Ephesians 4:9-10) There is no emptiness when He is present.
Written by Roger Bothwell on December 11, 2002
Spring of Life, 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453