Be Content to be Nothing

"Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are. When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full, except in the Lord." (Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

I find it very difficult to understand this idea of 'nothingness'. We pay lip-service to it - uttered usually as part of one's lofty prayer within a performance-motivated church-gathering. On another level, it is treated as a mere philosophical exercise - with people flirting with it as though it were part of an academic discussion. Either way, I think, by and large, the concept of 'nothingness' is held at a distance - because proper engagement of it holds the potential to expose our ever-present sense of despair.

A good friend of mine, who in the past made a profession to follow Jesus, is currently feeling this same sense of despair. Diagnosed three months ago with severe depression, he has come to an understanding, through means of counselling that his depression is rooted in unresolved conflict between himself and his own father. Being the fourth child, the pressure to perform has been ingrained for the most part of his twenty-eight years and with this, he feels a sense of constant failure in relation to his brother and sisters' excellent achievements. With constant digs from his father about his under-achievements, he feels stuck and cannot cope with life without feeling the effect of any slight negatively-charged opinion from other people. He knows that in order to resolve this conflict, he must talk to his father in the most sensitive manner (for fear of hurting him) - and more than this is that he needs, ultimately, to forgive him in order to move on. He struggles with sleep and excessive weight-gain; with a decreasing self-esteem, and increasingly becoming recluse, he has considered taking his own life.

It is in these situations that remind us we are nothing. And it is exactly in these times where the challenge to be content in being nothing is the hardest thing to do. Can we, through the despair still utter, "Jesus, I really am nothing without you. In my emptiness, I am content."?