Psalm 63:3 “I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory.”
Loneliness. It's a thing. And it can be so painful. All people were made for community. Some of us convince ourselves that we don't need others. In most cases (if not all), this is a defense mechanism. We're afraid of being hurt. We're afraid of becoming vulnerable to the pain others might be able to cause us. We're afraid of not being good enough, or deserving of their love. Deep inside we all have a need for intimacy and relationship. We all have a hunger to embrace and be embraced by others. Sometimes this longing can be squelched by sins that have been committed against us in the past.
Like our longing for relationship with other people, we innately carry in us a deep longing for relationship with God. In fact, we were literally designed to live in communion with him. This innate intimacy was torn asunder with the fall of man - with the original sin. The pain of this innate connection being severed, to our souls, can be likened to the loss of a body part and the phantom pains that follow. Only, this pain is much worse. You can lose a limb and continue to become who you were made to be. But without union - communion - with God, we can never truly become who we were made to be. The pain of not finding and living out our purpose is one of the greatest tragedies we can face. To live your life and not be adopted into Divine Life for eternity - is the definition of wasting one's life and the worst kind of loss.
The longing we have for intimacy with God is not only about the promise of Heaven with him after death, but is one we experience here on earth - and one that amazingly can be satisfied here on earth.
When the ancient Jews were led out of Egypt and rescued by the hand of the one true God, they felt a powerful desire to worship and praise this God who had saved them. They were in fact so desperate to worship him, that in the absence of Moses's leadership, they constructed a golden idol of a calf to commemorate the strength of this powerful God. However, even this powerful image did not do justice to the Glory of God, and was in fact blasphemous. Despite this infraction, God saw in this act that at the heart of their sin was a desire to worship their God with a physical representation. To be, in a sense, physically intimate with their God. So, he instructed Moses to construct the "Tent of Meeting." The Tent of Meeting would ultimately contain the Ark of the Covenant, and the Spirit of the Lord would fall upon this tent like a cloud, and become a physical and sacred space for them to worship and be near to him. Our God is a merciful and loving God. He wants intimacy with us even more than we want it.
Everything in the old testament points to and is made more complete in the New Testament. Today, he comes to us in the Eucharistic form, resides in tabernacles inside of every Catholic Church, and longingly waits for us to come and be with him.
What an amazing gift. What an amazing God.
Do we take this gift for granted? When is the last time you spent time with him in this way? Go to him and bring to him all of your burdens, and all of your praise.
Your Brother on the Journey,
Nick