As my plane descended over the sparkling lights of a sleeping Yerevan, I could feel the heavy clouds of nostalgia hovering over my country of birth. Armenia—almost 5,000 miles away from my current home in Los Angeles—so far away, and yet so near.

Proximity—physical or otherwise—is multidimensional and therefore hard to measure. What is known as an absolute value can, on an emotional level, feel incredibly complex. I remember when my child was only a few months old: he would make a fist, draw it close to his face, then push it away—fascinated by the new discovery that things appear bigger when closer to the eye and smaller when farther.

On my first day in Yerevan, after seven years, I find myself still titrating the proximity between places and feelings: closer and bigger, farther and smaller. Once again, I am reminded that matters of the human soul are measured by a spiritual metric—unlike the absolute values of distance, time, or size. Familiar sceneries, scents, tastes, emotions, relationships, and friendships cannot be confined to any unit of measure but can be fully experienced with heart and soul—regardless of physical proximity.

Perhaps this is what Scripture alludes to when it says, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Psalm 145:18). Nearness, in God’s world, is not about geography but sincerity. You can be thousands of miles away from your homeland—or from those you love—and still feel a deep sense of closeness. You can sit in the same room with someone and feel completely distant.

In the intricate depths of the soul, closeness is not measured by miles, but by love. May we grow closer to what we love and cherish—not by journeying far, but by turning inward and reconnecting with our true selves.