“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Augustine

“As the New Testament and the church tradition teach, the life of God is nothing other than the perfect love that eternally unites the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this Triune God spoke creation into being with the ultimate goal of inviting humans to share in this life. …[Jonathan] Edwards painted a portrait of the Trinity in which the love and joy of the three divine persons was so full and intense, it simply could not be contained. God’s fullness thus yearned to be expressed and replicated by sharing it with others. So this fullness overflowed, as it were, as God brought forth a creation that mirrored his triune beauty. And the pinnacle of this creation is created beings whose yearning for God mirrors, in a small way, his yearning for them. But whereas God’s yearning comes out of his fullness, our yearning comes out of emptiness. It’s a beautiful arrangement. The God of overflowing love longs to pour his love into others, so he creates beings that long for his love to be poured into them. But in my opinion … it wasn’t God’s original intention for us to ever go a moment with this longing unsatisfied. Living without the fullness of God’s love is a reality we have brought on ourselves through our rebellion, and it’s completely unnatural to us. And try as we may to run from it or numb it, the pain of our unnatural emptiness is acute and incurable. The profundity of our emptiness is the negative reflection of the profundity of the fullness of the One we long for.” Gregory Boyd

“And may you have the power to understand …
how wide, how long, how high, and how deep [God’s] love is.”
Ephesians 3:18

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

• Imagine a God whose eternal essence consists of “perfect love that eternally unites the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Now imagine that God choosing to love you and make God’s “home” in you. What feelings arise?
• Have you ever thought of your deep-seated yearning for intimacy with God as mirroring God’s deep-seated yearning for intimacy with you?
• Have you ever thought of the profundity of your existential “emptiness” as the “negative reflection of the profundity of the fullness” God wants for you?

Abba, make your home in me.

For More: Benefit of the Doubt by Gregory Boyd