Filled to Fullness

There is a beautiful ancient prayer recorded in scripture that says may you be “filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19). These words confounded me for years. It just seemed impossible to be filled to God’s fullness. In fact, for an eternal, ever-present, in-all-things kind of God, “fullness” really is a limiting word implying a finite capacity in some way. And that just didn’t fit my image of God. But when I read this prayer further, the fullness is actually referring to the human life and capacity which is, indeed, very limited in time, dimension, strength, knowledge, and ability. So to pray that we be filled to the fullness of God is acknowledging a willingness to create space and increase our own capacity for God-presence in our lives.

I like the image that A.W. Tozer offered in The Pursuit of God, that likens God’s fullness to a little pail in the ocean which can never hold all of God which is limitless, but it can be completely full of Divine love, within it’s limited form. We may argue that this is a good image to a point, but what if the pail is shot full of holes, unable to hold anything to its full capacity? To which I respond, that the pail doesn’t have to be perfect, just willing to be immersed in the ocean. Either way, we are filled, surrounded, embraced, held by the ocean of infinite love. And one might even conclude that the pail with holes is more fully permeated by God than the perfect pail.

How do you respond to this image? What does it mean for you to be filled to the fullness of God? What questions arise as you consider this possibility? What other image might fit this truth?