Grappling Understanding

It's not quite 8:00 yet on a Tuesday morning, and here I am. This is the one day each week I take the time to sit down and write whatever I have a mind to write. No theology papers, no forced, edited, tweaked, deconstructed and entirely re-written essays or short stories. Just my thoughts, my experiences, my own judgment.

Today I have to write a paper on what I believe about God's character, His works, and His Trinity. I know what I believe about these things, but I never realized how much theology has to say about just these aspects of God. For centuries people have put a lot of thought and time into trying to explain God. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

The Trinity. Three in one. It's hard to grasp, yet Christians insist it is the true nature of God, and we try to explain it, attempt to understand. In the end, only to find it's impossible to fully understand.

God is Father, God is Son, God is Spirit (or as my theology book put it, an inversion: Father is God, Son is God, and Spirit is God). All three separate, all three equal, all three one. It's paradoxical. It doesn't make sense to our little human minds. It's been argued that it's not even biblical. But it is, isn't it? It certainly explains how Jesus spoke of God and himself. If it's part of God's nature, why is it so hard to understand? Why can't we just know?

It's part of God's nature for us not to understand. He's so big, so much more than we are. How could we begin to understand the mind of the one who created the universe. It's impossible. We are just the tiniest reflections of the Creator, and we are consistently imperfect creatures trying to reflect on the nature of One who holds all things together and abides outside of time. It's crazy to even try to understand.

But we have to try, don't we? Our knowledge grows with trying. And though the more we know the more we realize we don't understand, still the closer we come to Him in our attempt to know Him.

God is good. All powerful. Gracious, loving, merciful. He is patient and constant. He is eternal, infinite. This is what I know, and as I explore and falter, it's all that matters. To know Him.