Emptiness

September 14, 2018

Have you ever felt blank? Like, not upset, not sad, not excited, not joyful, but… absolutely nothing? Like you genuinely can’t feel anything? You have a blank, clear mind and you just can’t tell what your emotions are because, well, you don’t have any. Do you ever feel very disconnected from everything else around you? And nothing happened to trigger this or put you in this state of mind, it just… happened? Do you ever just feel a sense of emptiness? Do you ever just feel like….

this?

Because I do ALL THE TIME. It’s like I’m always zoned out or in my own little world. It happens so often that I began to believe that I merely just lost all of my brain cells somehow. Sometimes I just get in these weird moods where I never know what’s happening around me, and I just feel, well, blank. But don’t worry, I am getting to a point.

So a few weeks ago, I attended a week-long retreat with about a hundred other students as part of training for a leadership position. Basically, this retreat is meant to be a little brutal. Words I could use to describe it would include exhausting, scary, sacrificial, and very very arcane. But none of that compared to how incredibly impactful and life-changing it was. To be honest, though, I had a pretty difficult time getting anything out of it for the majority of the week. The retreat was very hyped up, and all I heard from many different people leading up to it was how transformational and amazing it would be, and then I get there and, well, nothing. Blank. I was blank.

Despite how crazy and hectic life was happening around me, despite the incredible things I saw God doing in and through people each and every day, I felt nothing. This left me so discouraged, and I found myself praying over and over begging God to just let me feel! Like, do something in me, God! Show me something I’ve never seen before! Surprise me! Challenge me! Nothing. It was like every single person around me was experiencing some amazing transformation, seeing things they never had before, things that broke them down and changed their perspective. But me? It was nothing new. Because of that, for almost the entire week I had this mindset that God couldn’t do anything in me because I wasn’t experiencing anything new, because I already saw it all before. I kept praying for more. “God give me more.” He never did.

I think sometimes when we are praying for something new, something more, we are disregarding and ignoring what’s already there. You see, I had seen those things, but I hadn’t really noticed them. I never took the time to recognize them, to understand them, to press into and steward them, and ask God what He wanted me to do with them. When I asked for more, God replied, “why would I give you more, if you haven’t even acknowledged the things I have already placed in front of you?”

If you’re like me, you have those times when your heart is really on fire for God, and you just want to act on it. You want God to place something in front of you right then and there so you can tackle it. You’re ready and willing to do anything God wants you to, and you’re wondering why He hasn’t given you anything.

If I had already seen those things that I saw on that retreat and if I had already experienced them, then why have they not been on my mind all along? Why have I not been doing something about it all along? I saw those things, but I didn’t acknowledge them. There is always something right in front of you that God wants you to see and do. You don’t have to ask God to give it to you. You just have to really open up your eyes.

These past few weeks I have begun to see the beauty in emptiness. In those times when I feel confused, disconnected, and blank, God is still working. And if we are just moving fast, continually asking God for more and more, more things to prove that we want to serve Him, more things to change our hearts, we aren’t seeing the things He has placed in front of us. Just because you’re not experiencing or seeing anything new, just because God isn’t throwing jaw-dropping surprises at you every moment, doesn’t mean He isn’t doing, showing, or teaching you something. Those moments where God isn’t placing something new or drastic in your life should not be disregarded or dismissed and leaving us feeling blank. We need to embrace those times, because, in those moments, God is telling us to look around. And when we look around this time, we need to actually see. Actually see the brokenness, the hurting, and the despair. Actually see the places and the people that need to be seen. The ones who are near you every day. The ones who you are ignoring because you are asking God for more. Embrace the emptiness. 

Much love, Em