The Nothing God

I want to talk about love. It’s overused and under-appreciated. People flirt with the word itself just as much as they would the concept. And why always romance? I feel cheated - like we’ve all been told the most powerful love we can experience is between genders. Lately, I’ve been deconstructing my expectations about love.

As I write this, I realize my journey towards understanding love has been startlingly similar to my journey towards understanding God. It began with a misconception. Love and God are so poorly represented. And yet we strive towards them - believe in them - even if we’ve never truly encountered them. We doubt ourselves.

Maybe that was love? Maybe that was God?

And then comes the darkness. Its tendrils weave their way from the shadows into the deepest part of your being. In those moments you experience a dark clarity: Love/God doesn’t exist.

You must make due with what is.

There are people that never escape this place.


And in the messy, nonsensical way that is life, I have come to believe in both love and God. There is no logic to it. There is no reason that I believe in them. I just do.

I started wearing this wristband a few weeks ago. It says,
“Do No Harm, Do Good, Stay In Love With God.”

I wore it in the hopes that perhaps somehow I could believe it. I didn’t, though. Not really. I have slowly melted the idols that I have called “god” and “love.” They pool at my feet and are far from their former glory. Even those remnants disappear over time. In that empty space, however, I’ve discovered that we are allowed to let things be. Trying to define our beliefs is like trying to carve a cloud or mold fire.

In that empty place I have become aware of something I cannot define. In my loneliness, doubt, and darkness, I love. In that love not only have my concepts of “love” and “God” faded, but my concept of self has faded. “I” and “me” are no longer the place from which I relate to my surroundings. I feel wholeness in emptiness.

[Paul] spoke, saying, “People of Athens! I’ve observed how reverent you are in all ways, whether towards reason or revelation. I’ve scrutinized the objects of your attention, and discovered one that pertains to all of us: An altar to the God unknown. In your reverence, you’ve realized the limitations of your knowledge. You want to know what I’ve come to reveal? The artist-God who crafted reality and everything in it, who has power over all things both spiritual and material, wasn’t hand-crafted by anyone! He doesn’t fit in houses of worship, or need to be spoon-fed - as if God hungered. We are the ones lacking - and everything we have has been given. Even mankind, who has filled the earth, has a first cause. Reality has been fine-tuned to support life, and all of our circumstances have allowed us all to askthe same question: ‘Why?’ We grope around, looking for something more, and some of us find God. What we didn’t expect was how close God really is to each of us. “In Him we live and move and exist.” See! Your own poets are beginning to grasp God! “For we His children.”
(Acts 17:22-28 - My Translation)

This has beautifully described my journey in discovering something more than a word. Encountering love is like groping in the dark - we search for it - hope for it - yearn for it. And some of us never find it. Why? Because it's already here. It's closer than we were told to look. Close out your distractions. Sweep away your old drawings of God. Find something true and real - and near.