Having no new ideas today, I decided to write about nothing.

There’s a Latin expression ex nihilo nihi fit, from nothing, nothing comes. It has its roots in Greek philosophy, but you can find it all over the place, even in the Sound of Music where Maria sings: “Nothing comes from nothing /nothing ever could.” The idea is that there must always have been something or there wouldn’t be anything now.

My Old Testament Professor, Walter Michel, agreed. He insisted that God didn’t create the universe out of nothing. In fact, God had to create nothing.

Confused? Here’s how Dr. Michel explained it. What was there before God created the universe? God. All that existed was God. There wasn’t anything else, not even time or space, just God. For God to create something, there had to be a place to put things. God had to make something that wasn’t God. So God created nothing.

Is your head spinning now? Good. That’s just the reaction I wanted.

People often think they have God completely figured out. We’re like the young Princess Elizabeth who once told the Archbishop of Canterbury that she didn’t need a book about God because, “I already know about him.” It’s good for spiritual health to have our concepts about God stirred up sometimes. We haven’t got God figured out or trapped between the covers of a book. Sometimes we just have to be dumbfounded before God and cry out cry like the apostle Thomas, “My Lord and My God!”

Occasionally, it’s good to think about nothing.

Read Genesis 1:1-2 several time, think about nothing, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne