The greatest gift, I believe, are relationships that have depth; relationships with honesty, vulnerability and understanding. The absence of such relationships brings great pain — without relationships like this, even introverts can become lonely!
However, these relationships are hard to come by, and even when found can often seem incomplete. Somehow even when everything is going right, we can have this sinking sense of emptiness, of being unfulfilled. It is not uncommon, even with a multitude of friends and companions, to feel at times that no-one really understands you, that no-one really gets it — that there is this void, this longing for true companionship, true understanding, empathy and compassion.
Yet, in the Scriptures we find that this is the relationship that is fulfilled by God. In Psalm 139, the Scriptures say: ‘You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.’
To be understood is so difficult. We are confined by our own language and ability to communicate, by our experiences and the experience of others. Yet, in these verses, we read that God understands us thoroughly. He knows us not because of what we reveal to him, but because he made us and he sees inside us. He knows every inch of us, our thoughts, even the words we want to say before we say them. He knows our actions and our ways and tendencies.
All this is to say that we are familiar to him and he understands us. This means he knows our needs and our failings, and in Jesus Christ, God has created a relationship with us and met our needs. John 1:14 says that in Jesus Christ, God in the flesh has dwelt with us and that he is ‘full of grace and truth’.
We are relational creatures, made this way by God. In Jesus Christ, we have been welcomed into a relationship with God who by his Holy Spirit who dwells within, knows us and our experiences, who knows our longings and our needs and who understands. This is the relationship we all long for, where we are truly understood in a way that transcends any other relationship we have — even the best ones!
Saint Augustine summarised this when he said of God: ‘You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.’
Reverend Jacob Kelly
St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Kyabram
