“Mom, I just want to be with you.”

I lifted my head off the pillow to see my four-year-old son crouched at the foot of the bed, his blue eyes begging. I had just laid down for a Sunday afternoon nap, and while I wasn’t eager for company, I could not deny his obvious need to be near.

I waved him onto the bed, and he snuggled down into the mound of pillows next to me. Few words were spoken, and before I knew it, an hour had passed. Much to my surprise, we both had fallen asleep. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and watched my son’s sweaty head lie peacefully on the pillow next to mine. Not a line of concern creased his perfect skin.

Nearness has that effect.

I lay there drinking in that slow, sweet moment, as a gentle Knowing echoed in my soul, “I just want to be with you.” And I felt the familiar tug—a longing that began way before I did.

Prior to “the beginning,” before God formed the first people, he existed in Divine community. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were One, complete outside the confines of time and space. It was out of his good pleasure that God crafted sand, sea, stars, and sky out of pure nothingness. And it was good.

But the ones he called male and female? Well, in them, God put part of himself. And he called them very good.

Unlike anything else in creation, God attached himself to humanity. By making “man in his own image,” Father, Son, and Spirit crafted mankind not only out of community but for it. The community of God birthed the community of man. Love flowed both in and among them, a sacred union intended for relationship, not utility, for presence, not productivity.

Then came the divide: Sin wedged its way between God, the man, and the woman, convincing the couple that being with God was not enough. They wanted to be like him. The moment they attached themselves to something outside of God, the world shifted—and has been groaning to get back ever since. 

When our souls itch with holy discontent, it is because the need for connection is embedded in our DNA. We long to get back to the nearness for which we were created, to look into each others’ eyes and see reflections of the Divine. To know God, not as we want him to be or as we’ve been told, but as he is.

And while perfect presence was severed that day by the tree in Eden, God has not stopped pursuing us, drawing near through burning bushes, pillars of cloud, and the incarnate flesh of a newborn babe. Even our ache—that desire to know and to be known—is the gentle voice of God whispering, “I just want to be with you.”

feature image by Priscilla Du Preez via unsplash