"I am nothing." Try saying it. Do you really believe it?

Deep inside we really believe we are something. I've heard people say, "I fail at everything!" But sometimes what they really want is someone to say, "Oh, no. You really are quite good at this or that."

It's not easy to believe we are really nothing. There's a part of us that mirrors the guy who stood before God imagining he was really something (Luke 18:9-14) and said, "Lord, I thank you that I'm not like others." Isn't that guy inside us even as we confess that we are saved by God's grace alone? Haughtily, he adds, "Plus, of course, the fact that I'm not an alcoholic like she is, or a gossip like he is, or divorced like they are, or rude and obnoxious like him, or an irregular churchgoer like most, or . . ." It's even worse if you are a pastor. Let's see now, I read my Bible daily, go to church every Sunday, don't curse. I'm certainly better than most people and probably better than most Christians sitting in the pew. "Lord, I thank you that I'm not like . . ." How easily thoughts run in that direction. How far from saying, "Lord, I am nothing."

There was another guy who stood before the Lord with the "something" guy. He honestly thought of himself as a "nothing." He said something else that is hard for us to say and really mean: "I'm a sinner." You could tell he really meant it because he didn't say it with a sense of pride as if to say, "See, I even admit that I'm a sinner!" He meant it. He couldn't even lift his eyes but kept them trained on the floor, painfully aware that he was worthless before God. He hid in the corner where worthless people belong. He begged for mercy because that is all a "nothing" could hope for. He had messed up. He, no one else, was to blame. He could do no better. If he had any hope, it was only that he might receive what "nothings" don't deserve: something.

When finally Scripture's message gets under my skin with the words, "There is no one righteous, not even one; . . . no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Romans 3:10-12), then finally I become the second guy rather than the first. Then finally I say, "I am nothing," and mean it.

Amazingly, like the man in the corner, then I hear that I am something. I am forgiven. I am loved. I am a child of God. I am his treasure, which he rejoices over with singing.