Trinity Saved My Life

Here's a little article I wrote for Theology Network - all a part of Trinity Month:

I “gave my life to God” a thousand times in my teenage years.  That’s no exaggeration.

I was haunted by Christ’s example in the Garden of Gethsemane.  There he was, dramatically praying, flat on his face, offering it all up to God: “Thy will be done!”  So that’s what I tried to do.  Each prayer was more earnest than the last.  Over the years the locations became more dramatic.  If Christ’s example was anything to go by, outdoors was best. At midnight.  In a wooded place.  The scarier the better.  And so I prayed “Take me, use me, save me, rule me.  Thy will be done!!”

Nothing happened.  So I prayed more intensely.  Still nothing.  My anguish and heaven’s silence were difficult to reconcile.  Something had to give.  I decided that God didn’t want me.  And that, likewise, I didn’t want him.  So we went our separate ways.

In those years I exchanged a religious darkness for an irreligious darkness – one kind of hellish non-life for another.

But the Trinity saved my life.  I’ll try to explain how in a minute, but there’s no other way to say it: the Trinity saved my life.  In fact, only the Trinitycan save a life.

It’s the Trinity or hell.  So said Russian Theologian Vladimir Lossky.[1]  He’s absolutely right.  I just want to explore four aspects of this truth:

It’s Trinity or Satan.

It’s Trinity or self-absorption.

It’s Trinity or stoicism.

It’s Trinity or slavery.

In each case the Trinity saves us from a hellish alternative because, with Trinity, there is, to God,

Relationship,

Radiance,

Room, and

Response.

Let me explain these R’s with reference to John chapter 1.  I’ll tease out some implications as I go....

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Read the whole thing...

And read Dan Hames' great posts for Trinity month here and here.