“And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
John 17:5
What actually matters?
Have you ever wondered what the Father, Son and Spirit were doing “before” they created anything? They were single-mindedly absorbed in mutual affection. Was that a less important or less engaging activity than creating and redeeming the world? Did they make humans and wombats and tardigrades because they got bored? Certainly not! Their life was glory.
“Glory” is a way of speaking about what is weighty, important and ultimately valuable. Glory is what matters.
Now, God doesn’t change or evolve; he has no environment that conditions or alters him. He is himself the environment of all that is. And the Father, Son and Spirit demonstrate that the very currency and sound and flavour of all of life, The Environment, is intimate knowing. “The Father knows me and I know the Father” (John 10:15). That’s what matters.
And, wonder of wonders, what Father, Son and Spirit have always enjoyed they share with us: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one” (John 17:22).
Our relationships with one another (reflections and extensions of the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit), are not a necessary and temporary activity that we must unfortunately persist in until we get to heaven. No! Our loving knowing of one another and of our God and his of us is the central point of everything and it always will be.
Knowing and being known is what actually matters.
