BEGINNINGS

JOHN 1:1-5 & GENESIS 1

In the beginning … once upon a time … in a time long, long ago … regardless of the tale needing told, before it all, stood God ‘living’ in relationship. How do I know? It lies evident in the Word. Love expressed. John tells me, “ In the beginning was the Word.”

Love existed to pour itself out upon the beloved. Love can’t live in solitude, in isolation. Love necessitates one to give love to … to communicate that love … and Jesus was that expression of Love, to the universe, to man.

From the very beginning of beginnings a Word spoke. Colossians 1:6 reveals Jesus created all things and holds all things together. (Ephesians 3:9 … God Who created all things in Jesus Christ). Speaking to His disciples, Jesus explains that the words He speaks are His Fathers words, the words He first hears His Father speaking, He in turn then speaks them, to me. Relationship … that weaving together in order to bless and be blessed … lay at the heart of all things from the very beginning. The expression of that love found voice, and thereby life, and that life brought light that couldn’t be overcome by darkness, no matter how dark the darkness, or how great its effort to snuff out and deny the light.

What does that reveal to me? Many thing, but the most important for me at this moment is really quite basic and utterly simple. The emptiness I so often feel is a relationship issue. Put more accurately, my sense of emptiness reflects a lack of relationship in my life. Or should I say in the shell of this mortal frame. For the truth is there is no life apart from relationship. Existence, maybe; but not life. And God intends me to have life, and to have it abundantly.

I’m not simply referring to lack of human relationship. My relationship with God right now is weak and wavering. Not on His part; but on mine. God created me for relationship with Him … first and foremost. Until that relationship is in order, is it any wonder that I would struggle to develop or maintain relationships with others. Deep emptiness, a bottomless void is all that can exist apart from relationship. But the Spirit of God hovers over the emptiness of my life, waiting to speak light into it … waiting to pour all of Himself into me … waiting for me to tire of the darkness of self absorption and simply allow Him to be my all and all.