one

In the mysteries of eternity past, God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwelled in unsurpassed union and intimacy.  The Holy Three have always existed as a divine dance of romance, a whirlwind of affection and pleasure and love unending.  It was from this pulsating intimacy that God created humanity and the natural order.  Though we will always remain the creation, He formed humanity to enter into relationship with the Trinity, the Godhead.  In His great mysterious heart was a desire to bring human beings into the holy river of affections known between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to share in this Divine communion with them. (Deep Unto Deep by Dana Candler)




God is three and yet he is one; the mystery of the Trinity.  It is something that cannot possibly be explained, but something that is most certainly meant to be enjoyed.  Union is at the very heart of God.  He lives in union.  He created us from that union.  He desires for us to join in that union.  It is why we were made.  We were created out of an overflow of love, in order to join in the very intimacy of the Trinity.  Therefore, the Trinity is the prototype for relationship.  Even when God created Eve and brought her to Adam, he did it for union--union with each other that would beautifully remind them and point them toward the union they were made for in Him.  That's undoubtedly at least part of the reason that God chose to make woman out of the very substance of man.  So that they were deeply a part of each other.  Just look at the words spoken after Eve comes to life and the two are brought together:   "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)  And you have to love Adam's words just before that, the very first words of poetry ever uttered by humankind, "This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh." (Genesis 2:23)  

To put it simply, God has a preference for union.  I think that's why when we have experiences of union (or oneness) in this lifetime it does something deep within us.  It strikes a chord that was made to be struck.  It can be a little tricky though, because when we have these transcendent experiences we tend to think that they came about as a result of the person (or the thing) directly in front of us, rather than realizing that they actually came from somewhere or something (or, more rightly, Someone) much bigger.  C. S. Lewis said it so well when he said "It was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." (Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis)  Thus, our true longing is for union with God.  And when we discover that truth, and fully embrace it, then oneness with others becomes possible as well.  Then we who are many can become one with each other the way we were created to be, and live as people made in the image of God.