Three Tiny Words to Change a Life
I begin my forthcoming book with a simple sentence. Am I loved?
Not exactly soaring prose, just short, one-syllable words, and a question mark. I thought about starting with “Does God care?” Similarly brief, aiming at what we feel or worry or wonder about.
But the version my editor and I ended up with seems both more personal, and closer to home, more likely to hit at the heart: Am I loved? We can ask the line this way, too: Are we loved?
Maybe no question nags at us more. Perhaps no question matters as much.
We can move into the territory of cliché here, of course. Or overdone sentiment. And I don’t mean just a cozy emotional feeling, as Frederick Buechner once put it.
My efforts to answer the query, where I’ve been taking that question, you might not think of as promising.
But I’ve been discovering a surprising source that helps me, grounds me. I mean an ancient portrait of God: The picture of a God known to us as Father, Son, Spirit. (I note that my three-word question has a three-named answer.)
For here I find depth and grittiness and richness and—especially—tenderness.
Lots of us, I know, lean toward thinking of the belief in Trinity as complicated, confusing, even intimidating.
But I’ve long suspected there’s more to this ancient picturing of God. That it could lead to more joy. Lend more depth and vitality to our praying. Leave behind a settled conviction that we are beloved.
The Trinity, the way it paints a scene of a loving God who communes and converses, offers us an invitation to a life more fully convinced of God’s kindness. We find ourselves rooted in a love that doesn’t just make us feel better, but gives us more to share with others.
Not that we’ve experienced this view in all its fullness. Or can, or ever will. But what if getting a conviction here might help us—immensely?
“I don’t think,” I heard a preacher say not long ago, “that people, for the most part, tend to like themselves.” He was speaking from the vantage point of years of ministry, walking with people through their disappointments, temptations, and heartaches.
They live—we live—with the pressure that comes from a restless, driven need to self-improve and, well, prove something. We know the feeling: “The embarrassment of a Christian I knew myself to be,” as Kate Gaston put it wryly. “The final letdown in a long line of letdowns, and God was up there somewhere, shaking his head in mild, paternal disappointment.”
Sometimes it’s the littlest oversight that stains (or stings) our conscience, making us doubt whether we can be loved for who we are. Maybe it’s the “big” deal, the colossal failure, the thing we fear makes God mad, that we worry can separate us from any hope of mercy.
But all of us—whatever our imagined innocence and accomplishments, our human shame and regrets— need more than affirmation from peers, friends, or parents. We also need a divine, overflowing affection. As Julian of Norwich put it, with medieval flourish and elegance, “Our courteous Lord does not want his servants to despair even if they fall frequently and grievously. Our falling does not stop his loving us.”
And we secretly, at least on our best days, pine not only for moral instruction but for transformation. Grace is, well, great, of course. Amazing. But we also long for more than forgiveness. Also, please, help to keep going strong. Assistance to stay in the race.
Through the Trinity, God shows up with the patience of a father for his wayward children, to be sure. We see the redeeming grace of Jesus our Savior. Also, I would stress, the power of the Holy Spirit to make it real. There’s a richness there. The fellowship of the Three comes alongside. And we get hope for not only reassurance, but also new beginnings.
It’s in situations like this where I see the Trinity as more than an interesting puzzle or fodder for mere human curiosity.
Whatever the Trinity means for God in God’s very self (and there are mysteries here), it also gives an offer of extended, extravagant hope for what we could never do alone. The arrival of what John Donne called the “three-personed God” becomes less like health food supplements and more like an emergency room intervention. Not a pleasant hobby but a lifeline, given how much is at stake. I like how my friend Charlie Peacock puts this need: “As it turned out, [mere] transcendence as I understood it was not what I needed. … I needed real-time, earthbound rescue. I needed forgiving, reconciling, restorative love.”
Might we all find in the picture the Trinity gives us a love and a hope that does for us what we couldn’t even dream of doing for ourselves? In the Trinity, the Bible says, we see a God who doesn’t simply love but—on every level possible—is love. Lives in radiating love. Who draws astonishingly close in Christ. In every circumstance.
When we say God made himself vulnerable by taking on flesh, that’s what we mean. God appeared on earth as something as fragile and breakable as a human being. God came to a place where sin reigns, without every piece of protection from divine armor. For us and for our sake. But he did. And came out on the other side, bringing us along.
There’s lots more to be said. Sometimes our growth in such love meets challenges. We doubt the impossibly good news. Scoff when have trouble believing it includes us. Even kick it away. Sometimes our sin catches up with us or with those we love, no matter how filled with nurturing love God’s work in the Trinity seems. No matter how often we, in various ways, sing “Jesus loves me.”
But I’m seeing how the whole picture also offers resources (and resilience) for growth in goodness and holiness, and oh, thank God, hope. What if the three words rolling around in our heads were these: “You are loved.”
Broken as we are, as worrying as our situations are, saving and empowering grace appears. The possibility of more to come stands before us, awaiting an accepting, willing response.
Where I’ll Be …
January 4, 11, 18, 25 (four Sundays):
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Nashville: four-part adult Sunday school class, 10:00 am.
Saturday, February 28: half-day men’s retreat
St. George’s Episcopal Church, Nashville (more details to come).
March 16 (Sunday):
St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Sunday, preaching at the two traditional morning services and teaching the adult forum in between.
March 18: Wednesday, 6:30:
St. John the Divine, Houston, evening Lenten Speaker Series.
March 22: Sunday, 9 and 11 am:
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, SC, where I served for some years as Dean: preach and teach.
March or April:
St. George’s Episcopal Nashville, Book-signing event in Date not confirmed
Wednesday, March 11:
Author book signing event at North Wind Manor (www.rabbitroom.com), 2 pm.
Thurs-Sat., April 23-25, New York:
Mockingbird Conference. www.mbird.com or https://tinyurl.com/3s32ucpp
NOTE: Preordering a book helps an author—and communicates to the publisher the importance of the book’s message (and how many books to print).
