At Grace Communion International, we boldly affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. Our study of Trinitarian theology shapes every aspect of who we are and how we understand our relationship to God through Christ.
While reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, I came across an interesting passage. While working to define our God in light of the Trinity, Lewis illustrated how God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit plays out in our daily prayer life:
An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers… is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God – that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying, the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on – the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. (Mere Christianity, chapter 24)
As Christians, we have been given the Holy Spirit, our “advocate.” It is by his conviction in our hearts and minds that we are prompted, or as Lewis puts it, “motivated” to pray. At the same time, through Christ, we have been given a bridge to cross the divide separating us from our loving Father God. Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, teaching us how to pray, and interceding for us when we’re not sure what to pray. He leads us, as one of us, into God’s very presence, drawing us into closer communion and communication with our heavenly Father. In short, we can say we pray to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.
As we continue to wrestle with the mystery of the Trinity, I hope we will continue to be drawn deeper into relationship with our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.
I’m Joseph Tkach, Speaking of LIFE.
