Ideas for me?

Ideas for me?

But God is three in one

Galatians 4:6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

One of the big differences between Christians and our monotheistic cousins, Muslims, is our understanding and experience of God as three-in-one, Trinitarian.

This central tenet of our faith, I find personally, is easier to experience than to explain. And now I’m wrestling with the best way to express the Trinity to children.

I’ve written a draft of a book for kids about this topic, but I’m not satisfied with it. I showed it to a theologian, who told me I emphasized too much their diversity at the expense of their unity.

So, I thought of reaching out to you who read this blog. How have you explained or illustrated the nature of the Trinity to your children?

Please email me your ideas or write them in the Comments. I would really appreciate your thoughts.

Just for fun, here’s a hilarious clip of St. Patrick explaining the Trinity.

Thanks so much! I’m headed back to Pittsburgh this evening after a week with my sister and brother-in-law in Meridian, Idaho.

In other book news, we’re coming up to the deadline for turning in all the materials for Campfire Song Stories to EA Books, to be available before Christmas. I’m excited about this book, a bringing to life of six of the stories Karis and I imagined together during long days in hospitals, to commemorate ten years since she left us. I have five young illustrators (one of them 12!) and one young vocal artist (11) working hard—I know you and your kids will love their work! Please pray for them as they each complete their assignments. Thank you.

This I Believe (The Creed)

Advent ABC: Everlasting Father

Isaiah 40:28-29 (9:6, Genesis 21:33) Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.

There are several worship songs on the theme of Everlasting Father. I chose this one because it invokes Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son—which in turn reminds me of Rembrandt’s painting.

In the novel I’ve just submitted for publication, Facing the Faeries 1906, there is a “homecoming” chapter in which one of the characters, who has lived as an orphan, discovers he is loved and cherished by family. Thus, today’s theme is particularly moving for me. So many of us have lived “fatherless.” The Everlasting Father invites us home.

Everlasting Father, Elevation Worship

Do we dare?

But God is the Father of mercies

2 Corinthians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.

John 14:8-10 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father.” … Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. … My Father, who lives in me, does his work through me.”

I just finished reading a novel called The Abstainer by Ian McGuire, which takes place in the aftermath of the 1867 public hangings in Manchester, England of three Irish traitors or martyrs, depending on one’s point of view. As I got to know the main characters, I saw that each one was deeply influenced by the way they had been treated by their fathers, for good or for ill. Mostly for ill.

The word “Father” is never neutral. It evokes emotion: joy or sadness, anger or gratitude, pride or disgust, warmth or fear, guilt or confidence. Or a complex combination of many of these. Isn’t that true?

And for many of us, calling God our Father is equally complex. I remember one victim of abuse in Brazil literally threw up when in a support group we touched on the topic of God as our good Father. We automatically attribute to God our experiences with our human fathers. This woman needed profound healing before she was able to even consider the words “Father” and “good” in the same sentence.

So I’m intrigued by Dane Ortlund’s treatment of God as the Father of mercies in chapter 14 of his wonderful book Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. Ortlund says the label “Father of mercies” takes us into the deepest recesses of God’s loving, compassionate heart. He quotes these words by Thomas Goodwin, a Puritan writer in the 17^th century:

“God has a multitude of al kinds of mercies. … There is no sin or misery butGod has a mercy for it. … If your heart be hard, his mercies are tender. If your heart be dead, he has mercy to liven it. If you be sick, he has mercy to heal you. If you be sinful, he has mercies to sanctify and cleanse you. As large and as various as are our wants, so large and various are his mercies. So we may come boldly to find grace and mercy to help us in time of need a mercy suited to all the variety of the diseases of the soul. He is the spring of all mercy” (Ortlund p. 131).

And Ortlund continues, “Some of us had great dads growing up. Others of us were horribly mistreated or abandoned by them. Whatever the case, the good in our earthly dads is a faint pointer to the true goodness of our heavenly Father, and the bad in our earthly dads is the photo negative of who our heavenly Father is. He is the Father of whom every human father is a shadow. … Your gentlest treatment of yourself is less gentle than the way your heavenly Father handles you. His tenderness toward you outstrips what you are even capable of toward yourself” (pp. 132-133).

As we dare to connect our hearts with the Father’s heart this Lent, we will taste his mercy and compassion. We will find grace. His tenderness will heal us.

“Dare to stay with your pain. Make your pain available for God’s healing. The pain you suffer now is meant to put you in touch with the place where you most need healing, your very heart” (Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, pp. 47-48).

The Father himself loves you dearly (John 16:27).