BIG DADDY, J.C., AND THE SPOOK

This is what my friend Shari calls the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first time I recall hearing about the Trinity, I was a five year old chewing on those little offering pencils and then trying to stick them in my sister's ear. It was explained to me that just like a person could be a son, father, and brother at the same time, so could God. I was never satisfied with this analogy; I'm still not. We often try to put the Trinity into some kind of explainable equation. I don't think this is either possible or wise.

It can never suffice to place God into a simple formulae that we can teach children, or ourselves for that matter. It is simply not possible. It also does not give God the credit of who He is. Christianity has its roots ingrained in the idea that Jesus was God and the Father YHWH of the Old Testament is God and the Holy Spirit sent to dwell in us is God as well. But God is one god in all these fashions. I don't have the Trinity all figured out; nor will I ever (I don't think). But I do know that Jesus, the man who walked on this earth 2000 years ago, was God. He had the authority of the Almighty Creator. Yet, He prayed to the Father, who is also the same God. Confused yet? So am I.

So, how do we explain the Trinity, a concept so important to Christianity, to children? I don't know. I know that my understanding of the Trinity, as a child, placed God in very two dimensional terms. But I'm sure that those were the only terms I was capable of thinking in as a child. But maybe the discussion of the Trinity should be opened up, debated, questioned, reinforced, and cherished by modern Christians. It just seems like we accepted it as converts, but the seeking and questioning just never occurred.

I can't pretend to discuss the Trinity with any kind of knowledge, because frankly, even from my personal experience, it exists - but it's not understandable. I have questioned and sought to understand this aspect of the nature of God, but I cannot say that I've reached anywhere near a full understanding of what the Trinity is. I can only be a man of faith when it comes to the Trinity. It's part of God's nature which we CANNOT fully understand; but trying to fully grasp one facet of an incomprehensible god is worth Christians discussing and learning from one another. I don't have the answer, but contemplating it seems to bring me closer.


P.S. When I ran the spell check for this post [yeah, bet ya couldn't tell I spellcheck ;-)], it tried to replace YHWH with YAHOO - NOT the same thing!!!!