Chronicles of a Teenage Christian

9. Empty

After crying my eyes out to God that night I fell asleep and woke up the next morning feeling a little happier than the night before but I still wanted to know why I felt the way I did. So I talked to a friend of mine and asked her for bible study tips and two things that she did say that I didn’t know already was “Don’t read more than 1 chapter at a time” “Try reading KJV along with NIV for more depth”. That really resonated with me because I’m someone who tends to look at quantity rather than quality to be honest and my NIV bible was getting too easy to study so I needed something I could read in between the lines with.

That evening I got my set up. I pulled my princess net over my bed, turned off the lights and blasted worship music with my iPod dock. I let the music create an atmosphere around me, I began to listen to the lyrics in the songs and I sang along to the ones I knew. With my eyes closed, I began to worship God thanking him for who He is rather than pouring out my problems to Him (I’d already done enough of that).

Once I felt at peace, I prayed for Him to just reveal the secrets of His word to me, for the Holy Spirit to teach me and for me to hear what He is saying. Then I took my 3 bibles (NIV, NKJV and KJV), my dictionary and notepad and delved into the word at Genesis 1. I read it 3 times, each in the different versions I had in front of me and at that moment God just started to show me the meanings.

Genesis 1:2 ‘The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’

This is what God taught me:
In this verse, you are the earth. You feel miserable because you are still sitting in darkness; darkness is the absence of light (God), lack of knowledge (of the Word), mysterious, gloomy and secret (sin). You’re without form because you are still blind to the purpose I have for you and you haven’t allowed me to plant seeds in your heart to become the person I created you to be, instead you want to be who you want to be. And lastly, you’re void. To be void is to be empty, vacant and lost. But my daughter, despite all this I am always moving around you. I have always and will always be there, you just don’t see me.

Guys... when I tell you I held my breath for however long when God taught me this I’m not joking. PRAISE THE LORD, HE SPEAKS!! Just in one verse, He has reassured me that He’s here with me and He’s always been here but I just didn’t see it! I easily could’ve called it a day at that point in my bible study because I was more than satisfied but I wanted to know more and guess what? He taught me.

Genesis 1:3-4: ‘And God said let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness’

Stay with me now, you’re still the earth and now God has spoken into your life and given you light. The moment you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Personal Saviour you are made new and all darkness is driven away. God gave me imagery for this. Imagine it’s a bright summer’s day at about 8am and your room is dark while you’re asleep because the curtains are closed. Then when you wake up, you draw your curtains and the daylight is so bright it causes your eyes to hurt and it illuminates your whole room. That’s exactly what it’s like inside your Spirit when you truly accept God into your heart. Think of the smile that spreads across your face when it’s another summer’s day! Personally I love it; the feeling of knowing it’s going to be warm and bright all day is enough to make me smile.

The light is so significant throughout the Bible, you see it being referred to as Jesus, God and all things loving (Matthew 4:14-16). You never think of darkness when you imagine Heaven or Jesus. The light is pure, nimble, cheerful, free from sorrow, unhidden and full... I’ll come back to being full in just a moment, so keep that word in the back of your mind.