finally to come home—these are all the inescapable burdens of life in exile from God, of the human soul turned in on itself. Apart from life with the Creator, creation itself groans in futility, stripped of meaning, emptied of significance, void of purpose. Severed from the fountain of life, humanity’s inner longings and deepest desires find no ultimate objective, no telos—neither goal nor guide. And then long before we have tasted it, life runs out—and to dust we return. The New Testament describes