Sweet Nothings

Sweet nothings.

What in the world does that term mean?

As a child while I was growing up I always wondered what this meant. It intrigued me. I could never understand it. How can you whisper something that is sweet, but at the same time nothing?

As I’ve grown older, the years wearing their toll on me, my ignorance has dissipated. I’m pretty sure I know what it means now. Although I might not fully understand it, at least I understand it a little more.

Now instead of sensing ignorance I have replaced it with a sense of curiosity. With the fading ignorance another form of intrigue took its place – curiosity. It was a curiosity as to the experience, the sensations, and everything else that something like that entails. No, longer was I intrigued by the meaning of the term, but rather now the experience itself intrigued me.

To be quite honest the term is not a simple one, and for the mind of a child it really makes no sense. How is it possible to whisper something that is nothing? It doesn’t matter if it is sweet or un-sweet. It is simply impossible to whisper that something is actually nothing.

In a way I have experienced the whispers of sweet nothing throughout my life. Unfortunately not in the typically intimate sense of a boy and girl, but I have, in my own way, experienced it. Someone who loves me has often leaned close to whisper in my ear – that person is Jesus.

Typically when we consider the great discourses Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount is the one that comes to mind. Sometimes we consider His predictions and parables. Ravi Zacharias argues otherwise. In his book, Jesus Among Other Gods, he suggests that the most powerful discourse Jesus ever delivered was His silence before the counterfeit accusations He endured prior to the cross.

When I am seeking answers, trying to discern God’s will, I turn to His word. This is the logical thing to do, the practical thing to do. After all if you want to know what God’s will is, then what better place to turn to than to His word? God still speaks, and in His word, the Bible, He has provided all the answers to our questions. The Bible is a book of revelation – not confusion.

Yet when I turn to the Word I often turn to it unfairly. I turn to it with expectations, unfair expectations. There is a chasm of difference between faith and expectation. Often I expect God to speak loudly, that He ‘thunder’ out some clear, audible sign. Or else I expect it to be a clear earth-shaking (‘earthquake’) sign.

I am not alone in my expectations, or my reactions. It doesn’t happen only to the spiritual weaklings, it can even happen to the spiritual giants. Elijah was pretty much the same way. He expected God to be loud and clear or to shatter his world. But He didn’t. Instead God preferred to communicate through a ‘the sound of a low whisper.’ (I Kings 19:12 b). God whispered.

Here we bump into my original dilemma. It is impossible to whisper nothing. When two young lovers whisper ‘sweet nothings’ into each other’s ears they are actually whispering something. When God whispers He says something. God always has something to say. In fact when Jesus didn’t respond to the accusations He was actually, really, saying something. He was expressing His love. Like a Lamb He went to the slaughter and didn’t say anything but at the same time He was communicating the greatest message ever known to man. That was the sweet nothing He had to whisper.

According to C. S. Lewis God whispers in our pleasures. God still whispers messages of love, sweet nothings, to me. Mostly He uses the Bible as His preferred mode of operation, but He is not limited to that. Nature and all of Creation can also be channels of divine sweet nothings. The redeemed man (as well as the lost) is an incredible example of this, particularly through their conversations, art, and writings. These are the sweet nothings that God whispers into my ear whenever I draw near enough to hear.