68: God Is Faithful In Our Emptiness

One of the things Brad and I enjoy about where we live is our proximity to the beach. We don’t live at the beach or in a beach town, but the waves and sand are only about an hour and a half drive away, so day-trips every now and then are doable. And sometimes, they are needed. After all, as we remembered way back in Episode 14, water is good for the soul. Feel free to give that reminder a listen if you haven’t already.

Anyway, I will never forget one of those quick trips to the beach, or I should say, an attempt at a quick trip. We loaded up in my jeep and started heading toward the coast. The weather was great, traffic was light, and it was shaping up to be a wonderful, relaxing day. That is until, seemingly out of nowhere, my car stopped accelerating. Before the steering wheel froze up too, I was able to get to the side of the road where my car eventually rolled to a complete stop. I put it in park and looked over at Brad. So much for the perfect beach day.

We tried to diagnose the problem to see if there was anything we could do before having to call someone to rescue us. The truth is, my car was pretty old and had been having some issues here and there, so this wasn’t a total shock. Unable to figure anything out, though, we resigned to calling a tow truck and hunkered down to wait the estimated 45-90 minutes it would take before said tow truck was scheduled to arrive. 

During that time, Brad kept researching on his phone to try to figure out what the issue might be. As simple as it seemed, he kept coming back to all signs pointing to the car being out of gas. I kept pointing to the gas gauge, which showed I still had half a tank left, so I assured him that couldn’t be it. He asked me how long ago I’d filled up and how long the gauge had read at half a tank, and the honest answer was that I couldn’t remember and wasn’t sure. 

Now, one bright spot in all of this was the fact that we were “stranded” right across the street from a big, beautiful truck stop, so snacks, bathrooms, and air conditioning were very much in reach. And so was gasoline. So Brad walked over, purchased a gallon of fuel, and proceeded to pour it into the gas tank. I then proceeded to start up the car and drive over to a fuel pump where we filled up and headed home. And called to cancel the tow truck. Turns out, the gas gauge was broken. And I felt ridiculous.

Sometimes, we hit empty and don’t even know. And I’m not just talking about driving in a car. I find that in life, we are so good at masking our emptiness, we convince ourselves it doesn’t exist. We point to the gauges of our lives—our possessions, accomplishments, accolades, calendars, resumes—trying to prove that we’ve got it all together, completely unaware that our gauges are broken. That they aren’t telling us the truth. We forget that a life can appear full, but remain empty.

And then there are times when we are so keenly aware of the emptiness. The diagnosis, the disappointment, the broken relationship, the lost job, the exhaustion, the grief—each remind us of our frailty, our limits, our shortcomings. And we wish we could overcome it all, or at least distract ourselves from it. 

But the truth is, whether we recognize it or not, whether we like it or not, experiencing forms of emptiness is part of our reality as human beings. And part of the beauty of this season of Lent is that we remember that we can be honest about that emptiness. We can name our need. We can admit our limits and dependency and let go of our supposed self-sufficiency. 

When we acknowledge what’s dry, hollow, barren, blank, maybe seeds are sown. Maybe recognizing what’s empty tills the soil for something to grow in that emptiness. And maybe the tears we shed water that fertile ground.

Several months ago, I learned about a natural phenomenon called the super bloom. It occurs in a handful of deserts across the world and provides us with a beautiful metaphor for the potential God sees in the emptiness, the wilderness, the desert places of our lives. 

These real-life deserts are dry, arid, barren, and mostly lifeless - at least as far as the eye can see. But deep down beneath the hard terrain, there are seeds laying dormant. Thousands upon thousands of seeds. And about once a decade on average, these deserts see a higher than normal amount of rain; not just a quick thunderstorm but a steady overabundance of precipitation. As a result, the seeds sprout and grow and bloom. The entire desert is then covered by a blanket of wildflowers. A lush display of life and color and wonder that most would never expect to see in the middle of a desert. It’s transformed.

So it is with our emptiness. God transforms it. Where we see waste, God sees abundance. What we might call wilderness, God calls wide-open-space. Where we see a dead end, God sees a way forward. What we might see as stuck, God sees as planted. We believe Jesus when he said he came that we might have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10). 

As people of faith, our honesty is never without hope. Our faith gives us reason to believe emptiness has potential. Our faith reminds us that ours is a God of wild imagination and creativity and fresh possibility. A God who often does God’s best work with broken things in empty spaces. Our faith helps us remember an empty tomb is not the end of the story.

It’s hard for me to believe, but if you’re listening in real time, this week marks TWO years of the remind{h}er podcast. I think back to when I began the work to launch this show, and truthfully speaking, I was in a really empty place as far as creativity goes. After a ton of denial and wrestling, I acknowledged my need for a creative outlet and the idea for this show came out of that need. What started in emptiness has become something that is incredibly life-giving.

Likewise, each episode, each remind{h}er, starts with a blank page. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but creating these episodes has become a spiritual practice for me. When there’s seemingly nothing to offer, when I’m frustrated that the word count isn’t where it needs to be, when it feels like I’m sending these messages into a big empty space, over and over and over again God takes the blank page and brings it to life, fills it with words, connects them to hearts. The podcast is a teeny tiny example in the grand scheme of emptiness, but something I’ve learned over the past couple years is that we don’t have to be afraid of the emptiness, because that is precisely where God does God’s best work. And God is always faithful.

Last year on the One-Year Anniversary Episode, I shared Lamentations 3:21-23 and it feels fitting to share it again this year in light of all that’s empty:

But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope: 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,[b]
    his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Today, if you’re running on empty, remember: God is faithful in our emptiness. May we continue to hope in a God of wild imagination, creativity, opportunity and fresh possibility. And may we continue to trust in the God who sees our potential and leads us to life, life to the full.