Formless and Void

Scripture — Genesis 1:1-2 (NRSV)

When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Devotion

A few mornings ago, I found some rare time in the morning to be alone and to reset from the busyness of life. I sat on my couch with a warm cup of coffee in hand and grabbed my Bible to read in the quiet. Really wanting to soak in this moment, I turned to one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture: Genesis 1.

I just can’t get enough of the beauty and power found in the biblical story of creation. It frequently brings me to tears, raises chills on my arms, and stirs within me a sense of awe as I read over the intentionality and precision God uses to form this world we live in.

I revisit this story often, so I was surprised by how differently it hit me this time. Instead of reading the chapter like a poem and soaking up the story as a whole, I was halted at verse 2. I couldn’t move past the words “formless and void” (NIV). This phrase, also commonly translated as “chaos” (as in the NRSV), describes the condition of the world prior to God bringing life into it. The verse goes on to imagine this eerie, mysterious scene, describing the chaos as water, an element that provoked intense fear in the ancient world due to its untameable, wild force. The Message translation offers yet another helpful visual: “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”

Truthfully, I prefer to skip over this dark, perplexing image and focus instead on the story of creation that follows. Genesis 1 paints a glorious picture of life coming out of the “inky blackness,” demonstrating God’s unimaginable power and creativity. It reminds me of seasons of life that feel saturated with beauty and fueled by a deep sense of purpose—those times when it’s easy to see God’s hand and feel God’s goodness. Can you recall those seasons? Maybe you’re in one now. It could have come about when you worked hard for a promotion—and got it. Or that time of life when you felt most alive, as if you were truly living out your calling.

But Genesis 1:2 puts words to another kind of season that exists—one that, like the chaotic waters depicted here, can disorient and dizzy us. The reasons are many for finding ourselves in “formless and void” places: being misunderstood or mistreated at work, the ending of a meaningful relationship, a project failed, a dream unfulfilled. During these moments of life, beauty, meaning, and purpose seem to be absent, while uncertainty, pain, fear, loss, and anger seem to prevail. These moments make us feel as though where we are is formless and purposeless’; as if no life or good can possibly come from it. And if you’re like me, you desire to move quickly out of these seasons. Who wants to wade into a soup of nothingness, let alone spend time swimming in it?

But the story of creation gives us a powerful reminder that it’s through the waters of chaos and nothingness that God brings forth creation and new life. In those spaces and places that feel the most void, the least purposeful, and often the most painful, God is already at work creating and redeeming. As one theologian put it, “The anxieties that torment me as I face the insecurity of my existence and the dark curtain of the future become the raw material from which I let God build my trust and my faith.” The chaos we experience, in Christ, becomes fertile ground for creation. And while this is by no means easy, trusting in the Lord means knowing and expecting God to take the soups of nothingness in our lives and transform them into works of divine creation.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: God Brings the Material World into Being (Genesis 1:2).