Finding Peace In the nothingness

​Such a simple question to be so thought-provoking. "Are you at peace when you don't get what you want?"

We spend so much of life thinking about what we want, formulating plans to get what we want, and then actually pursuing what we want.

But we don't get everything we want. Some of us get very little of what we want. And I got to wondering, how much time do we spend figuring out how to deal with that? How prepared are we to not get what we want in a world that spends so much time chasing everything it wants?

How do we find peace in disappointment?

I guess for me, more and more, the answer is in accepting I have everything I need in a world that is full of things I could want. An answer born in being stripped down to near nothing. And in that stripping down turning to God and hearing from him, that even in my nothingness - ESPECIALLY in my nothingness - I am all he has ever wanted.

Because with God, nothing is measured by what I have - only by what I give. And when I turn to him in my nothingness, I have given him all he has ever wanted from me.

Is it possible that when I turn to him, giving him all he has ever wanted, that he wants me in turn to see and feel more than I could ever want?

Is it possible that peace IS in the nothingness?

Is it possible that not getting what we want is a more direct path to peace than getting it?

The apostle Paul was in a prison cell, with as much nothing as a person could have, when he made the public declaration that he had discovered the secret of contentment. I have everything, he all but shouted to the world, when I have Christ who gives me strength.

The Christ who gives me strength to face disappointment.

The Christ who lifts my head from the depths of nothingness to face to source of everything.

The Christ who reminds me that I could spend an entire life getting everything I ever wanted, and in the end have nothing.

Because when you have everything you want, it is possible to be without what you need.

It's possible to be without peace.

In almost any way that life can be counted and measured, I have less today than I've ever had.

But more than ever, I have peace. And what more could I want?