THE LONGING

There are moments when pain arrives without a clear origin. It settles quietly, like a weight beneath the surface, unannounced yet undeniable. I used to search for its source within myself, tracing memories, measuring circumstances, trying to make sense of what I felt. But the deeper I walked with God, the more I began to sense that not every sorrow belongs to one story alone. Paul writes, “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor. 12:26). The word he uses, συμπάσχει (sympaschei), does not describe distant concern, but shared experience. Syn means “together,” and paschō means “to suffer.” It is not sympathy. It is participation. Not feeling for, but feeling with. This is because the Church is not merely a gathering. It is σῶμα (sōma), a body. And a body does not distribute pain neatly. It carries it. What happens in one part echoes through the whole, even when the source remains hidden. The life within it is one. In the beginning, God breathed into man the רוּחַ (ruach), His ...

I once believed that if I could perceive God clearly, everything within me would finally settle. One face, one רגע (regaʿ), one moment of clarity, one encounter that would silence every inner ache. But deeper into the journey, I realized God does not meet me in finality. Scripture had already whispered this mystery. The Hebrew פָּנִים (pānîm), “face,” appears only in plural form, faces. Not because God is divided, but because He cannot be reduced to a single gaze or expression. I once overlooked this, still searching for one ultimate vision that would complete me. Then I came to Jacob, whose story would not leave me. At Peniel, פְּנִיאֵל (Peniʾel), he declares, “I have seen God face to face,” פני אל פנים (pānîm el pānîm), “and yet my life is preserved.” I once imagined peace in that moment, but the text reveals struggle rather than serenity, a night that resists resolution. Jacob did not arrive at God as one arrives at a destination; he was drawn into Him through conflict, through mo...

There is a longing in me to see beyond the tomb. The great Sabbath holds a mystery that unveils two worlds at once, the natural and the supernatural. In the natural, there is a sealed grave and a lifeless body. Everything appears final, silenced, and unmoving. Yet in the unseen, a decisive victory is already unfolding. The natural speaks of ending, but the unseen carries a movement that cannot be reversed. To live within these two worlds is to begin understanding the reality of the Kingdom. The disciples could only see the weight of the visible, the tomb, the pressure of political forces, and the stillness of the body of the One they loved. That was their reality. At the same time, another realm was in motion, one not grasped by human sight, where Christ was proclaiming triumph and releasing captives, as echoed in 1 Peter 3:18–19. What appears silent in one realm may be filled with activity in another. This in-between reality has always been present in the deeper stream of the Church...