EMPTY IS GOOD

By Christine Jayakaran

March 26^th, 2023

I fill vases ... with flowers

I fill trays .. with keys and coins

I fill troughs.. with potpourri

I can never just leave a container empty!

Recently my sister-in-law gifted me a beautiful tray and bowl set. My first instinct was to place receipts on the tray and fill marbles in the bowls. As I was looking around for the knick-knacks I took a second look at the ceramic ware in front of me. They were so beautiful as they were. They did not need me to fill them up or adorn them in any way. At that moment I took the smallest step outside my comfort zone and just displayed the pieces as they were - no frills - just them on a plain white shelf. The effect was timelessly elegant and simple.

I'm learning that going to God empty is good too. In fact, it's essential. Without that emptiness, I could resist His infilling or be unprepared for an unprecedented move of God.

On most days I go to Him as tattered and ragged as I feel - I don't waste time playing dress up with Him. I meet Him in my emptiness and come away changed. There have been days when I covered my issues with explanations and justifications of why I said or did some things. It's been in those times that I have felt most distant from God not because of Him but because of my heart's condition and mind's conditioning.

When I drop the act and come clean it changes the very atmosphere around me. What felt sterile and sanitised turned into something sacred and sublime all at once.

If we get comfortable going to God while empty, it's reasonable to assume that we can do the same in the safe spaces of our life. Isn't it interesting how as regular humans we are so used to presenting our best selves, posting the best pictures, and curating the best content, but overlooking the beauty of just being ourselves? We load our persona with our well-documented work experience or our many networks forgetting that even without all that we are incredibly special. There is none like us.

Why do we feel the need to fluff up our image, our stories, and our situations?

Are we so insecure about who we are that we have the need to put on a show?

What if we were to meet people and just be ourselves without any special effects?

Would that be such a bad thing?

It is in that simple yet brazen offering that our beauty shines through.

Find those people or persons with whom you can just be yourself without the burden of titles, experience or connections. You will not get from them what you can only get from God but it will feel heaven-sent when you can sit with them in quietness and not have to prove yourself one bit!