3 Easy Steps To Understanding the Trinity

Just kidding. Wouldn't that be nice though? Maybe that's why so many book titles or new fads out there have "3 Easy Steps" in their title or tag line? It would just be so nice if losing weight or amassing a fortune were really that easy. So we fall for it again and again. Hey, maybe there really are "3 Easy Steps" to amassing a fortune: 1. Take some time off 2. Write a book 3. Call it "3 Easy Steps To Amassing a Fortune". Who knows? It might work.

There might be "3 Easy Steps" to doing some things, but I'm pretty sure understanding the nature of the Trinity isn't one of them. But what is the Trinity? I get asked that all the time. Well, that's pretty easy, "It's the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" I say, but it's never enough. It's true, it's biblically sound and theoligically correct, it's absolutely right, but the blank stares I get in return tell me I need more.

The Trinity is a perfect example of how finite our brains are this side of heaven. There's just so much we don't get and couldn't possibly get even if we had a microchip with all the accurate information in the world on it planted in our brains. Side note: I wonder how far away we are from something like that actually? Many explanations for why God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are all the same but really separate are just not good enough. There's nothing that quite captures it. Just try saying the Trinity is like a cup of coffee or a bowl of cereal. That's right, more blank stares.

With all that said, my latest explanation may not help, but how about the nature of the Trinity as compared to the nature of our sun? Hmmmmm. Not bad, huh? The sun is the source of life. Well God is, but you know what I mean. Without the sun, we all die and fast. The sun is this amazing, incomprehensible, bigger than life object in the sky. It's hotter, bigger and more mysterious than anything we can imagine.

Now the sun's light is what reveals this big, hot, amazing, incomprehensible thing to us all. The light is all around us and really fuels the innerworkings of the earth so with the light, we know the sun is there and we know we need it. We can't look at the sun for long or we'll go blind, but the light reveals it's existence and we've seen pictures.

So we have the sun and it's amazing, and the sun's light is what reveals its existence. Now what? How about this? It's warmth makes us feel it. It's warmth washes over us and keeps us from freezing to death. Some days are colder than others though. Some days are downright freezing, but it's only the sun that can warm things up again. There are even days where the sun's warmth scorches us, but every evening like clockwork, it relents again.

Okay, so this is kind of cheesy, but it does help me at least. The sun is really three-in-one: the sun, its light and its warmth. Each one of these things is unique, but at the same time the same. Here's to more confusion and maybe a little en"light"enment on the subject of the Trinity.