Nothing

​Raul lives in Chinandega, Nicaragua and serves with our First Cause team by translating Reverations into Spanish.  Recently Raul* lost his job yet needed funds to help pay his school tuition and for a training conference with Timothy Academy in Honduras. I wired Raul money based on the bank instructions he gave me.  But when he went to the bank they said no funds had arrived.  For three weeks this went on—each time Raul went to the bank they reported no money.  Yet on my end I had a receipt showing $146 was wired.  Raul believed me and I believed Dolex Dollar Express and we both trusted God but Raul had no funds.

Meditation
Esther 6:1-3—That night sleep escaped the king, so he ordered the book recording daily events to be brought and read to the king. They found the written report of how Mordecai had informed on Bigthana and Teresh, two eunuchs who guarded the king’s entrance, when they planned to assassinate King Ahasuerus. The king inquired, “What honor and special recognition have been given to Mordecai for this act?” The king’s personal attendants replied, “Nothing has been done for him.”
 
Mordecai was a humble man of integrity, a Jew who faithfully served the Persian King, Xerxes.  After uncovering an assassination plot noted in the passage above, Bigthana and Teresh were hanged on a gallows.  But nothing was done for Mordecai, the man who saved the king’s life, until much later in God’s perfect timing.  

As I meditate on this passage I am reminded that many times in our life nothing happens when we expect “something” to happen.  Perhaps we don’t receive a raise at work despite stellar production.  Recognition is passed out but we are left out.  We expect an answer from God for an important prayer and receive silence. There is nothing encouraging about nothing.  But the absence of anything is often the very substance that enables us to grow.  For example, nothing teaches us patience and enlarges our faith, which is built on the evidence of what is not seen. Nothing makes us question what we don’t have and perhaps really need.  Nothing reminds us that when all is said and done we are truly dependent on God who is Everything.  
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Raul finally found the money.  Somehow we got our wires crossed and he was going to the wrong bank.  The money was there the whole time!  Isn’t that so often the case!  We ask and trust God for help and He provides—we just can’t see it!  We need the eyes of our heart to be enlightened.  We need to trust that the Lord’s timeless watch is perfect for our finite thinking.  Which means on occasion we have nothing to think about . . . in reveration!  
 
Inspiration
When God puts the dark of “nothing” into our experience, it is the most positive something He can give us.  If we do anything at that point it is sure to be wrong.  We have to remain in the center of nothing and say “Thank You” for it.—Oswald Chambers in Not Knowing Where
 
©2006 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box. Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)