Wednesday ~ Conversations from the Closet: My Empty Worth

Yesterday I left work feeling not overwhelmed and depressed, but just sorta needy. That kind of neediness that comes from just needing to talk some things out with God in full honesty.

After getting home, I dropped off my purse, camera bag and lunch bag onto my bed, grabbed my blanket, bible and journal and closed the door behind me in our unheated walk-in closet.

And I talked with God.

I confess to being a little out of practice in the art of full disclosure with God. But talking with God is like peeling back the proverbial onion, done layer by layer. It takes time, but it gets easier and easier. I talk out loud when I pray, it helps me connect my mind more fully with the presence of God in my heart. And so I huddled under my blanket and peeled back the layers on my heart one by one before God.

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“For when I kept silent [with God], my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For night and day your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity.”
(Psalms 32:3-5)

“But when I thought how to understand [overwhelming circumstances], it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God...”
(Psalms  73:16-17)

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Sometimes it's hardest to get quiet before the Lord because it's then in His presence that we're faced with just how empty and useless we really are.

 But that's what is so awesome about God. It's only God who makes something out of what is nothing. And my emptiness and uselessness (my nothing) is exactly what God takes in His hands and fashions into something. Something that pleases Him and is the worship He deserves.

I don't like feeling that on my own I amount to nothing. I don't like knowing that without Christ there is nothing of true value about me. Apart from Christ, I truly am nothing and I don't like that. I feel stronger and more in control when I hold onto something of value about myself of my own making...but when I do that, I still have that unquenchable neediness inside me that comes from holding onto those worthless trophies and trinkets.

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“...for apart from Me, you [are] nothing.”

(John 15:5)

“Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before You.”

(Psalms 39:5)

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But that's another thing about God and that's that He gives me a feeling of worth in my emptiness. It's when I fully let go, emptying myself of all earthly value and credit, that I suddenly feel the worth that I crave to find. My true worth in Christ alone. The full-to-over-flowing kind of worth.

And it fills me up completely.

Something out of nothing?
Worth found in emptiness?
Only in Christ.

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“Those who look to Him are radiant...”
(Psalms 34:5)