“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature; nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
-Romans 8:38-39.

It’s a powerful moment in any person’s life to come upon the realization that the whole Earth is not enough to fulfill the insatiable heart of our desire. No amount time, no path of life, no effort expended, and no requisite reward is enough to attend to the seemingly-infinite yearning within us. And we are left restless.

The Saints say that this restlessness impelled by our insufficiency is the source of our misery, while doubling as the source of all our accomplishment. Our greatest ancestors realized channeled their restlessness into the construction of Babel—a ziggurat to the stars and great name to resound in the cosmos!—and every empire, kingdom, and corporation has been chasing the shadow of Babel, insistent that somehow this time it can be different. We struggle to believe that all shall be well; that all we need will be provided; that before we even spoke, we were already loved. Instead, we become like the very wolves that are devouring and destroying us.

Oh to what lengths Our God has gone to show the unsearchable riches of love!

You can ask a theologian to explain what a ‘propitiation’ is. You can ask an scholar to explain the symbolism of Christ’s crucifixion. But the Word became flesh in order that we may SEE what Love is. Love can only be experienced, never explained. Love is the body of Christ—broken for you. Take and receive it and you shall live forever. The dead will live again. You shall find rest for your souls.

I first met Oren Pajela at karaoke night, and I love writing that sentence. From him, I learned two of the most valuable truth about Grace I can ever know: 1. Grace will never stop breaking into our lives to give us life, and 2. who knows what dreams may come when a sinner learns how unfathomably loved he is?