And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 1:18-19)
Think about what it would be like to be completely connected with God, with our spouse, with our kids, with our wider family and friends. We would know with certainty how we fit into the fabric of those around us. We would feel totally loved, totally secure, totally certain about the point of life.
Problem is however that many of us suck at connection! Awkwardness, uncertainty or self-absorption get in the way. And what is the motivation anyway? It takes a lot of effort to connect with people, and our overtures may not always be well-received. For some of us, connection may simply be outside of our lived experience – disconnection, violence and dysfunction may have been the norm for us growing up.
Yes there are many barriers, but isn’t connection something we all still crave? We may not say it out loud, but the desire we each feel for connection is inside all of us. It is a universal need. It’s what it means to be human. A deep longing inside all of us, but as we peer into that particular well, many of us see that it is far from full, and we have no idea where the bucket is.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is written to a church in which members were struggling to properly connect. There were two groups in this church – Jews and Gentiles. They came from very different religious and cultural backgrounds (Eph 2:11-22). Old ways of thinking and cultural differences died hard. So much so, it could be said that this was the number one problem, not just there in Ephesus, but in the first century church as a whole.
Yet God has done his bit (Eph 2:14-16), and paraphrasing Ephesians 4, Paul is saying:
”C’mon guys – think about it! How many bodies are there? One. How many spirits are there here? One. Lords, faiths, baptisms? One. Are you getting it? … How many groups should there be in your church then? Multiple choice question: one… or two? “
They needed to connect… with God and with each other.
So much for the theory lesson. How’s this actually going to work?
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 1:18-19)
The number one New Testament problem is to be met with the number one New Testament solution – love. Starting point for them was to be rooted and established in love. Some digging required! Breaking up some rocky ground maybe. Deliberate spiritual gardening… getting to being rooted and established in love.
Paul’s number one prayer for them was that they would be able to come to an understanding of just how massively cubic Christ’s love for them is. To really know it. Even though the extent of it is actually unknowable. Why? So they can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.. Now that kind of filling sounds like you don’t have to bend down very far at all to get a drink from that well.
And so, when you have resources like this to draw from, cross-cultural unity doesn’t seem like such a big problem any more.
So, connection, that thing we all crave, doesn’t happen by accident. We must be individually deliberately determined. Intentional. Could be as simple as setting up a coffee or lunch with a friend. Make a time. Spend some time. Connect.