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2009  

Before I come undone
Save me
Save me from the nothing I've become

This is a lyric from "Bring me to Life" by Evanescence. I had it running through my head the other day and it got me thinking.

'Save me from the nothing I've become' speaks clearly of a fear many of us may share: amounting to nothing, drifting in obscurity, our lives having no meaning or purpose, sleepwalking; leaving no footprints in the sands of time or ever having *lived*.

Psychologists acknowledge the need for significance as a fundamental human need. We all need to fit in but stand out; belong yet be different. Life today can be cruel in simultaneously advancing the notion that the opportunity exists for an individual to easily affect the global village yet making us feel very lost in the billions of the world's population.

None of us wants to become a 'nothing'. We might cry out too, if we felt that way. Though I've not seen 'Daredevil', the song seems to speak of a relationship only through which true reality is experienced. A place of meaning and being.

For Christians, that relationship exists. Not only are we assured of vitality in experiencing a bubbling, abundant, new life but in God's hands we are assured of fulfilment and purpose; significance and destiny.

The Bible is littered with examples of seemingly insignificant people whom God used significantly. Moses, lost in the desert for years, brought back to be Israel's deliverer (Ex 2). Joseph, rejected, enslaved, accused, imprisoned, forgotten. But not by God. Promises fulfilled, he administered the most powerful nation of his age (Ge 37, 39-41). David, anointed of God yet hidden in the mountains for years 'til his day came (1 Sa 22). S/Paul chased out of the way for years 'til Barnabus remembered him (Ac 9:30, 11:25). Even Jesus, 30yrs of obscurity and 40 days in the desert before he was revealed.

All these and more, the foolish things through which God was pleased to bring to nothing the wisdom of this world (1Co 1:27-28). The things that are nothing. The insignificant. The 'nothings'. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble (Pv 3:34 / Ja 4:6 / 1 Pe 5:5)

Like these, perhaps our surest hope of destiny, meaning and purpose is in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Like His own Son, perhaps we too can be arrows hidden in His quiver (Is 49:2).

We also can reject conformity to this world (Ro 12:2) and cry 'Save me, Save me from the nothing I've become' choosing instead a path trodden before us by the Saviour.

Perhaps we should make these other words of the song a prayer:

Now that I know what I'm without
You can't just leave me
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life