The Essence of Nothing

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

The beginning words of one of Scripture's most beloved and well-known passages - Psalm 23 - reflects the bountiful supply of our Creator.  He creates to fill voids.  He abhors a vacuum.  "Fullness" is what he seeks.  His two major movements of original creation were: 1) giving order to chaos, and 2) filling that which was empty.  When any part of creation is lacking fullness, it is not just incomplete, it is "not good."  When man's life was empty of a companionship which was adequate (animals fell short), the woman provided fullness, just as the Creator-Father intended, for He withholds from His children no good thing.

Because God is constantly giving fullness to the empty spaces, emptiness or the state of nothingness is a departure from His design and desire.  We can see this illustrated in a number of ways throughout created reality.  The lack of heat produces the state of cold.  The lack of light produces the state of darkness.  When love ceases to exist, the state of apathy becomes reality.  And, in the ultimate display of the power of God's good and powerful fullness, when life is extinguished, death enters the room.

In William P. Young's book The Shack, the character Sarayu - a manifestation of the Holy Spirit - counsels the main character, Mack, about understanding the interplay between good and evil in the world.

"Mackenzie, evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life.  Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence."

Light / Darkness

Darkness is paralyzing, denying balance by removing the textures of our physical environments.  Darkness is a gradual stain, seeping into every crevice as light wanes.  It curses with the damning power of shadows, but only at the abdication of light's force.  When night begins to fall, the darkness invades like the cockroaches who tend to inhabit it.  Bit by bit, bug by bug, the inky blackness crawls from ebony wombs.

Light and darkness is often used as a metaphor for good and evil.  And as the lack of light creates the presence of darkness, so the lack of good creates the presence of evil.  Darkness and evil are not divinely-created entities, which explains how a good God could tolerate evil in His creation.  He has created all things "good," as the Genesis account repeatedly states.  It is when "good" is ignored that evil is birthed into a tangible reality.  We, rebellious creatures, "create" evil by pushing aside good and establishing a vacuum which becomes filled by the adversary of the good.

The lack of evil's substance is affirmed by the act of man doing good.  When someone chooses to be benevolent, to speak with kindness, to offer love in any way, evil suddenly evaporates.  Good has filled the void of evil.  Thus, John's announcement in John 1:5:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Darkness/evil has no grip on light/good, for it holds no power and no actual presence.  A match can devour it's cloak in an instant.  It is a wispy shadow capable of nothing but deception, disguising good.  It is impotent when good marches forward.

Love / Apathy

A-pathy is the lack of feeling.  It is not just emotionless existence.  It is the inability to bleed compassion for those in pain.  It is a paralysis of the heart.  When one possesses apathy he/she actually possesses nothing, for the God-heart has, then, ceased to beat within the soul.

Love fills the void.  Love is the active reach of the God-heart into the existence of others.  In spite of, or even in defiance of, our coldness, we choose to feel life's pain and to step into the misery of the suffering one whom we encounter along the side of Jericho Avenue.

Apathy wishes others no ill will.  It simply wishes. . .  nothing.  Apathy is deaf to the cries of agony, and blind to the river of blood.  Apathy is too distracted by self to extend compassion, for compassion requires attention, effort and sacrifice.

Love requires so much, because it is the fullness of God's compassion.  Apathy is a much better bargain for the miserly soul, for it costs nothing and yields the benefit of personal peace.

Life / Death

When God took the dust of the earth and formed it, it was shell of dirt containing. . .  nothing.  It was not until He breathed into it "spirit" (literally, in both Hebrew and Greek, breath) that flesh was inhabited and the fullness of life blossomed.  When a man dies, the soul vacates the shell.  Death is the separation of spirit from flesh.  Death is the state of non-life.

Life crowds out the hint of death.  Breath.  Beat.  Flex.  Blink.  Rustle.  Each is a harbinger of life and the denial of death.

Hope / Despair

If "faith is the assurance of things hoped for" (Hebrews 11:1), then, if I may be so bold, I would say that hope is the assurance of things believed.  To some people hope is a wish or a dream.  Such kinds of "hope" are, at best, strong maybes.  They are the things we anticipate with crossed fingers and held breaths.  We will not be surprised if they fail to become reality.

Hope in the Kingdom of God is far greater.  Hope in God's realm is simply waiting for the inevitable to be.  It is the anticipation of absolute certainty.  A trustworthy God has shown us the brochure and all that remains is the passing of time and the unfolding of events under His command.  Then that for which we hoped is our possession.

But when we fail to believe the pictures in the brochure, we let our fingers slip from our grip on hope, and certainty flutters away.  Despair fills the void, for despair only comes when hope flees.

And So. . .

Each of these dichotomies gives an additional hope.  We are, first of all, assured that the enemies of evil, apathy, death and despair are empty specters.  They hold no actual power, except the power to intimidate and paralyze by convincing those entranced by their stare that they are formidable and invincible foes.  And they are, quite literally, nothing of the sort.

Secondly, placed within our hands is the power to send the empty foes packing by simply utilizing the God-controlled "weapons" of good, love, life and hope.  The emptiness need not remain a void.  The fullness of His remedy is available to those who, in faith, will grasp it and wield it amid the darkness, the dirges of apathy, the aroma of death, and the clouds of despair.

The Good Shepherd has filled us with all good things.  It is only when we, like an obstinate child, push away the plate at the feast, will find ourselves lacking.  We have created a vacuum into which rushes evil, apathy, death and despair.  Instead, enjoy the feast from the Provider!  Lay hold of it with both hands and make the foes of fullness scream with rage.

Choose good.

Choose love.

Choose life.

Choose hope.