A MILLION LITTLE MIRACLESSýnishorn

Nostalgia for God

“Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus,” said Glen Scrivener. “Atheists believe in the virgin birth of the universe. Choose your miracle.”

The homing instinct is the innate ability within certain animals to find their way home across great distances despite unfamiliar terrain. Loggerhead sea turtles may swim as far as twelve thousand miles from the beach where they were born, yet some­how they find their way back to their birthplace. Sockeye salmon swim nine hundred miles upstream, gaining 6,500 feet in elevation, to spawn the next generation in the very stream where they hatched.

Like the homing instincts in animals, is it possible that God apple tagged us in the Gar­den of Eden? Deep down, we know from whence we came. Our deep­est longing is this holy homesickness to find our way back to Eden, where we once walked with God.

“You have made us for yourself,” prayed Saint Augustine, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Pope Francis called this instinct “nostalgia for God.”

There is a longing for Eden in all of us that is fulfilled only by the second Eden, which the Bible calls heaven. And it’s not a place—it’s a person—that we long for. It’s the Creator who formed us in His image.

What do we do with that nostalgia for God? I don’t think we go back to old understandings of who God is. Instead, we rediscover the God who is bigger than big, closer than close, and gooder than good.

We may think we’re seeking God, but God is the one seeking us. The psalmist said in no uncertain terms,

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life. (Psalm 23:6 ESV)

The goodness of God has been pursuing you all your life, and it will pursue you until the day you die. Perhaps it’s time to return the favor! Seek the God who is seeking you.

How are you seeking God? What signs have you observed that He is seeking you, too?