Your "Something Greater" is where you are and where you aren't yet.

The "already" and "not yet" of your life conjoin where your deepest longings reside.

Ben took this photo in fall 2020, while he was outside doing yard work. He texted me the image, with a caption about how the stark contrast between the red leaf and the textured wood chips struck him as beautiful. It was a moment of awe that he shared with me, which reminded me that nature, though often silent, communicates a powerful message to us about what it means to reach beyond where we are and still hope for what is to come.

Love is a perfect metaphor for the Something Greater that is both here, in this moment in time, but has not yet been fulfilled. Love is where the already and not yet embrace.

When I was in my early twenties, I worked as an executive assistant in a small Lutheran church office. My boss was married to a seminarian who was studying at Concordia Theological Seminary for LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) pastors-to-be. When she landed the position, I had already been working in the office as a pastoral assistant, which was then switched to working directly for the Executive Director.

Deb called for weekly meetings, in which I would sit in her office behind closed doors, and we’d discuss (for maybe an hour) any items of urgency or upcoming events or concerns. It was a time for us to communicate our expectations, our plans, and my progress. Deb was always cordial with me, and in a way she became my mentor, not just professionally, but on a personal level. I could talk to her freely while on our lunch break or at staff meetings, and she always heard me with great patience and compassion.

But there were boundaries in place between us, of course. She was my superior, and I respected her and my place as her assistant. We didn’t hang out beyond our shared time in the church office. She had her life. I had mine.

That’s why when, one day —on a day when our weekly meeting was scheduled —I was taken aback when Deb came into my office wide-eyed. She spoke with a sense of urgency: “God gave me a message for you.” I didn’t know how to feel about that. Was this some sort of psychotic break? What did she mean by this? She continued, “I’ll tell you what happened when we meet in my office.”

Curious, I asked her what was going on as soon as she closed the door. Deb was a level-headed, rational woman. I knew she wasn’t going to tell me about some ethereal vision or apparition. But the way in which she approached me felt, well, strange. Awkward. A bit intimate?

“Jeannie, God has big plans for your life. I mean, big plans,” she said, widening her arms to span as far as they would stretch apart. “He gave me a verse for you. It’s from John 16: 33, and it says, ‘In this world you will have trouble, but take courage. I have overcome the world.’ I don’t know what is going to happen in your life, but I know it’s something very important.”

That’s all she said.

But it was enough to shake me up, enough to keep me guessing and pondering the rest of the day and, well, for years beyond that.

It was a statement that would resurface in my memory from time to time, especially during a dry spell in my creative work, or when I felt particularly low about myself or my life. Then I’d return to the words “big plans” and think, Huh, I wonder what that means? Somehow, “big plans” gave me a sense of hope, or maybe it was purpose to keep going and that someday things would turn around in my favor.

I’ve since rephrased the words “big plans” to Something Greater. It’s nebulous, I know, but it means there’s something I’m meant to participate in or contribute to that is bigger than I am. And it invigorates me to consider the possibilities and to keep doing what I’m doing day to day.

Not long ago, I read this quote from Natalie Goldberg in her book, Old Friend From Far Away:

[Tell] how you know there is something else, somewhere else…how you also know it’s right here and you can’t touch it.¹

To read this brought to life the concept of Something Greater again. It touched the deepest aches of my heart, the tension and ambivalence and struggle. The grappling of this elusive, undefined mission that maybe I’ve only assigned to myself, but I’d like to believe God does want me around to do something valuable in this life —it’s in the waiting but also in the rooted-ness of the here-and-now.

Both are the same in an indecipherable way —the already and the not yet. How they conjoin, maybe in some sort of communion, exist in the already of what is being lived out today, and the not yet in what is being shaped by today’s events and insights and growth.

There is a specific place and time for the Something Greater to happen for you and me, and what precedes it, or leads up to it, cannot be rushed. It must be lived. This formation, this preparation, brings me to the Something Greater for which I have yearned for many years. There are moments I feel so close to it, but it still cannot be grasped, except in this knowing in my heart. And I am reminded now of the verse in Song of Songs that says, “Do not arouse or awaken love before its time.”²

Love is a seed that indeed aches, because to love is to expand the heart, to lengthen the capacity to feel —to know and be known, fully. It is the oldest and most universal human longing, and we seek to quench our parched hearts through the transitory experiences that draw us nearer to our ultimate desire, which is to love and be loved in return. Nothing slakes it; nothing satisfies, except requited love.

It hurts, this ache for love, but it requires a relinquishing of self, of immediate gratification, and of want. Love, like the Something Greater (or maybe they are one and the same?) cannot be forced before it is ready to arise from its slumber, which is the dormant period where it remains undisturbed and inactive in the recesses of the human heart. What is latent should remain in this state as long as it must, because when it awakens, it will reveal its fecundity and abundance —ready to both give and receive whatever it needed.

Love, then, is a perfect metaphor for the Something Greater that is both here, in this moment in time, but has not yet been fulfilled.

Love is where the already and not yet embrace.

1. p. 227

2. Chapter 8, verse 1