Daily Reading
In Perfect Relationship
January 5, 2025
We’re after God’s story, the drama from his perspective, so we would do better to start with the opening lines from the gospel of John, which take us back even farther to the once upon a time before time: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1–2).
The story that is the Sacred Romance begins not with God alone, the Author at his desk, but God in relationship, intimacy beyond our wildest imagination, heroic intimacy.
The Trinity is at the center of the universe; perfect relationship is the heart of all reality. We long for intimacy because we are made in the image of perfect intimacy. Still, what we don’t have and may never have known is often a more powerful reminder of what ought to be.
Our story begins with the hero in love. As Buechner reminds us, “God does not need the Creation in order to have something to love because within himself love happens.”
And so it is with God. “Father,” Jesus says, “I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am. I want them to be one heart and mind with us” (John 17). Overflowing with the generosity that comes from the abundance of real love, he creates us to share in the joy of this heroic intimacy. One early mystic says we were created out of the laughter of the Trinity.
Sunday afternoons were my favorite days during summers on my grandfather’s ranch. That’s when we’d go “visiting,” calling on second cousins, great aunts, adopted friends, and other relatives at their farms. I remember having a warm, settled feeling as I sat on the porch and listened to the older folks remembering the shared stories of their lives. My sense of security grew from an awareness that all this had been going on before me, that though I was part of it, I wasn’t responsible for it. It didn’t depend on me. You’ve heard that children care more that their parents love each other than that they love them and this is the reason why. It’s the assurance that there is something grand and good going on that doesn’t rest on your shoulders, something that doesn’t even culminate in you, but rather invites you up into it.
And so it is with God’s story. Before any of our complex and sometimes overwhelming smaller stories began, there was something wonderful already going on: Once upon a time, were Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the kind of home we’ve been looking for all our life. From the beginning, we know that God is a lover at heart, from all eternity.
Want More? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today
The story that is the Sacred Romance begins not with God alone, the Author at his desk, but God in relationship, intimacy beyond our wildest imagination, heroic intimacy.
The Trinity is at the center of the universe; perfect relationship is the heart of all reality. We long for intimacy because we are made in the image of perfect intimacy. Still, what we don’t have and may never have known is often a more powerful reminder of what ought to be.
Our story begins with the hero in love. As Buechner reminds us, “God does not need the Creation in order to have something to love because within himself love happens.”
And so it is with God. “Father,” Jesus says, “I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am. I want them to be one heart and mind with us” (John 17). Overflowing with the generosity that comes from the abundance of real love, he creates us to share in the joy of this heroic intimacy. One early mystic says we were created out of the laughter of the Trinity.
Sunday afternoons were my favorite days during summers on my grandfather’s ranch. That’s when we’d go “visiting,” calling on second cousins, great aunts, adopted friends, and other relatives at their farms. I remember having a warm, settled feeling as I sat on the porch and listened to the older folks remembering the shared stories of their lives. My sense of security grew from an awareness that all this had been going on before me, that though I was part of it, I wasn’t responsible for it. It didn’t depend on me. You’ve heard that children care more that their parents love each other than that they love them and this is the reason why. It’s the assurance that there is something grand and good going on that doesn’t rest on your shoulders, something that doesn’t even culminate in you, but rather invites you up into it.
And so it is with God’s story. Before any of our complex and sometimes overwhelming smaller stories began, there was something wonderful already going on: Once upon a time, were Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the kind of home we’ve been looking for all our life. From the beginning, we know that God is a lover at heart, from all eternity.
Want More? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today