Love, the Trinity, and My Existence

I'll never understand love.

I will certainly never comprehend the Trinity.

Maybe someday I'll fully understand the purpose of my existence.

I'm reading King's Cross by Timothy Keller right now. Two things have struck me so far. One is how the book of Mark and Keller's comments are reminding me of my complete selfishness. The other is the explanation of the Trinity, God's love, and my existence. I won't spend any time on my selfishness today.

The relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one that dwells in community and love... each glorifying the other with all His fullness. In Genesis, God the Father speaks the Word, and the Spirit moves. In the baptism of Christ, Jesus glorifies God the Father, the Father is pleased, and the Spirit ascends like a dove. Each is pouring glory on the other.

In the book, Keller explains that in order for God to be Love, which He claims to be, there must be relationship. If there is no Trinity, then there was no love before creation because love can only be demonstrated through relationship. I found that to be an interesting point. I'm sure people could debate it, but it struck me as thought-provoking.

Love is giving. The Father gives glory to Jesus. Jesus gives glory to the Father. The Spirit gives glory to Jesus. You get it. The perfection of community that exists in the Trinity is possible because of Love.

What does this have to do with my existence?

Maybe when God created man, it wasn't to bring glory to Himself, but to be able to give love to man. Our responsibility then, to complete this community, is to give glory to God, but His purpose is to give love and glory to us. That's community. That's love. This understanding of community and responsibility helps me view God so differently.

God wants to lavish me with his love. In my upbringing, it was always about "do this" and "don't do that." This pleases God. But God isn't waiting around to be pleased. He's actively loving me regardless of what I do. This doesn't leave me blameless. In order for me to experience the fullness of this communion with God, I in turn must glorify Him with all that is in me. I must love Him back. Relationship cannot be one-sided. My love for God does not determine His love for me. His love for me is unrelenting. But when I choose someone/something else besides God to receive my love, I am not experiencing the full communion with God that He intended for me to have. I am only robbing myself when I choose to put my love somewhere else.

I exist because God wants to share His love with me. That is powerful.

June 30th and I'm Halfway There!

A couple years ago, I set a goal of reading 12 books in a year, and I did it pretty easily. I decided to do it again this year, but I was pretty overwhelmed with graduate work. Thanks to the fact that I didn't set any rules on what kind of books, I've read two lower level reading books this last week to put myself on target for 12 books for the year.

Then again, after I finish this project, I am going to try to read a lot more. I'm starting to enjoy it a little more.

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
• Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz
• Hear No Evil by Matthew Paul Turner
• More Hold 'Em Wisdom for all Players by Daniel Negreanu
• Crazy Love by Francis Chan
• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

Book Give-Away!

My friend is giving away a copy of Matthew Paul Turner's book, Hear No Evil: My Story of Music, Innocence, and the Holy Ghost. CLICK HERE to go to Esky's blog for the info on the giveaway.

Matthew Paul Turner also hosts the blog, Jesus needs new PR.

Book It!

As a teacher, I should naturally be a reader. I confess, I am not. Two years ago, I committed to read 12 books in a year, and I accomplished that goal. I think I'm going to relive that goal for 2010. Right now, I'm making a list of books I think I want to read.

1. The Reason for God by Tim Keller
2. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
3. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller
4. Christ-Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell
5. Prodigal God by Tim Keller
6. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
7. Skinny B*tch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
8. Angry Conversations with God by Susan E. Isaacs

So far, those are the only books I have on my list. I'm sure I'll come back to add more. I don't own any of these books. If you have any of them and want to lend them to me, let me know!

Reading Challenge

Somewhere along the way, my friend Gretchen challenged me (not directly) to read more. As a teacher, you'd think I would enjoy reading. I don't. Gretchen reads like crazy, and I am repeatedly impressed with her passion for books. After reading her blog for a while, I decided I needed to set a reading goal for 2008. My goal was to read 12 books. I figured I could read a book a month.

I fell in love with Don Miller's writing, which made it easy for me to fly through three or four of his books. Through the summer, I did well with reading, but once school started, I fell behind. I didn't think I was going to reach my goal. I decided, though, that I could count the books I was reading to my class even though they were books I'd read before. By adding 2 oral reading books to my list, I'm at 11! If I finish the book I've started (probably won't), I will reach my goal of 12 books!

Even if I don't reach my goal, I'm pretty happy that I read 11 (9 that I'd never read) books this year. So, I have to throw a special thank-you out to Gretchen for inspiring me to read!

Check out my list of books in the sidebar. :)

What did the cavemen do?

Last night our house was being rewired for Verizon Fios. I was without tv and internet for like 3 hours. It was so painful! After doing laundry and playing as much solitaire as I could handle, I reverted to reading. I have this book I was supposed to finish in hmmm, August? I only have like 4 chapters left, but I get so distracted reading. Anyway, I read (partially skimmed) 2 chapters last night, and it was really good. It's one of those books that makes me go, "Yeah, that's how I need to live!" But of course, when I walk away from it, I don't really no exactly how to apply it.

One of my favorite things I read in it last night said,

"I want to be humble, but what if no one notices."
-The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

Goals

While flying home from Indiana, I had a pretty cool conversation with the couple sitting next to me. They were a young, friendly couple, and as we talked, we found out we actually knew a lot of the same people because they were BJU grads, and he teaches at Inter-City Baptist. Small world! During part of our conversation, we talked about reading, and I told them (I can't remember the husband's name, but the wife's name was Cassie) about my friend, Gretchen, who reads a billion books a year. I told them how her example encouraged me to set some sort of reading goal.

I'd started out strong, but fell behind. Then I finished Velvet Elvis on my trip, so I'm now caught up on books! It's July and I have read 7 books. My goal is to read 12 books this year, so for a-book-a-month, I'm on target!

All that to say, maybe I will achieve my reading goal this year! I had also set a goal of having my school loan paid off this summer, but that's not happening. I was pretty discouraged, not so much about the loan, but the failure of reaching a goal. I rarely set goals because I hate the feeling of failure. That's pretty much the worst attitude ever, but it's definitely true in my life.

This paragraph is where I should be making some deep statement about setting goals despite the possibility of failure. Unfortunately, I have no light to shed on that subject. The End.