The Bible is a collection of stories about God, and the major theme of the scriptural writers is the idea of God living among us. That's the whole point really. God and us, together. While this world certainly has a lot of ugly things in it, I believe God still looks at us and all of creation with love-sick eyes and says, “Good! And very good! I love you!”

He created us (which includes you) to be the object of his love and affection. He created you just so that he could get to pour out his love on you. It's his joy and his privilege. He created you to be the recipient of his love, forever.

And more specifically, he created you and I, all of us, to be the focal point of Jesus Christ's love and affection. And if God himself is going to love us like a perfect husband loves his wife, then we must be pretty special. Not special by our own hand, mind you, special by his hand.

The Bible says that God made us in his own image. Can you get your head around that? It seems to me that only someone like God himself could be worthy of the love of God. That's you and me. All of us.

Worthy.

And beautiful and powerful and creative and free to make plans and to pursue them.
Free to receive God's love and revel in it. Bathe in it. Get drunk on it.
And free to pour it out on others, just like God has poured it out on us.

Why are we here?
To experience God's love, and by loving others powerfully and vulnerably and sacrificially to experience what it's like to be God himself, so that when the time comes for two to become one flesh, we wouldn't have it any other way.