God comes to me in different ways, saying different things at different times. God comes to me in the person of the Creator when I encounter God’s loving transcendence, God’s affirmation, “It is good,” spoken about every aspect of the Cosmos. Energy or a profound creative unfolding in many dimensions, all involving love, that’s the Creator.
God comes to me in the person of the Son when I experience God’s immediacy and God’s embodiment. When I am accompanied by the God who understands me fully through their own Incarnation – through being poured out into a body, and then through surrender to all that means – I am interacting with the Word made flesh who lived among us.
And God comes to me in the person of the Holy Spirit when I experience a deep intuitive knowing – a stirring wind that rifles my soul. The Holy Spirit is also the joy and peace and tears that come with a rightly discerned decision or action.
In telling you this, I want to invite you to reflect on how YOU, in prayer, know the different persons of God. It won’t be the same as my experience; it will be unique to you, and very personal. What feels to me like the voice of the Spirit might to you feel like the Creator’s voice, or the Son’s. Our understanding is unique that way.
What do you reach out to God for? Is it to praise creation? Is it that deep celebration of the color and sound, the mystery and majesty of the universe? Is it thanksgiving for the abundance of life? Is it to express your terror of the vastness and might of the world? Is it to ask for guidance and direction from the source of all that is?
Are you looking for comfort in your sorrows? Are you praying a lamentation to the God who has experienced everything you have experienced, the God of suffering and surrender? Do you look for guidance from the Master, the Lord who lived and died as one of us?
Do you want to share your affection and give of yourself and need some guidance? Do you need words to speak or an understanding to guide you? Are you opening yourself to the wellspring of inspiration and wisdom, the holy wind of the Spirit?
The Trinity arose out of the observations of the disciples and from a very early time became our way of describing God. It’s the paradox at the heart of our faith, not something easily graspable by our minds. We are mono-theists; and yet the single God that we worship is made up of three persons. These are not just aspects of a single personality, but full-on persons in a kind of perpetual dance with one another, all of one Being.
Ponder the description of the Trinity that we share as a church: God in three persons, three portals, as it were, for interaction. And then begin to think about how you have come to know the triune nature of God. Don’t be afraid to get it wrong. This is personal revelation we are talking about.
But push yourself to imagine those aspects of the Trinity you may not be as comfortable with. Reach out for new insight. Stretch to envision more of the Holy Mystery. By doing this you will be opening new portals between your heart and God’s.
