God - Raised to the Third Power

"God created human beings;
he created them godlike,

Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female"

Genesis 1:27, The Message

I learned some new perspective on things these past couple of weeks.  First, I learned that God provides in his timing and it is what we need.  Think of the concepts of daily bread or manna and you'll get the picture.  I have some work again after a bit of a drought.  I have no idea if it will be permanent or if I want it to be.  But I know it is provision from a loving Father and that's what's important.  But bigger than that, I've learned something new by the way of my C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity study.  And it isn't so much the concept that is new as it is the perspective I've been given.

We've had it drilled into our heads that God is a Trinity since we first saw our names on a Sunday School role.  I was in parochial school since the 4th grade and had it hammered home more than many.  But the concept seemed a bit "out there" and this past week, I believe I understand why.  It's because it is "out there" and that's the way it will stay.  And a simple geometry lesson brought home the concept for me in a fresh way.

If life is a one-dimensional world, then all we see are simple lines.  There is no shape defined and that's what the world is.  But add a second dimension and we get shapes - shapes made up of lines.  It is possible then, to draw a square and see it as it's own thing.  But we overlook that it actually is four perfectly equal lines arranged in a certain way.  Move to the next level of complexity, and you can take four squares and assemble a cube.  That three-dimensional world takes on all kinds of possibilities that were never conceivable in the one-dimensional existence, yet even the cube retains the traces - the image if you will - of the simple lines that make it up.

God, all three persons or personalities of him, exists in a far more complex dimension than we do.  Yet, when he created us, he said among himself (yes, you read that right), "Let's put the image of us in what we create.  Let's put traces of our divine dimension and existence inside this man so he will have the opportunity, at some point, to see he is a reflection of us."  And so we have what we read in Genesis 1 about God breathing his life into a lower, less complex dimension and it forever having the shadow of God inside it.

Now, to make it even more bizarre - and I say that in a good way - God doesn't stop at that.  Knowing full well this creatures choice will be his undoing, God's second person reduces himself to the dimension of the created world, proves who is king once and for all, and provides a redemption.  He invites us to live out our current existence in his grace so that we can one day transcend this feeble dimensional existence and go on to live forever in his dimension, seeing him face-to-face.  And that, is one of the "mere" points of Christianity.

My Crooked Path is so far beneath where God dwells.  And yet he chooses to enter my world and invite me into relationship.  He offers me the gift of a different life now and the promise of something beyond my imagination to come.  It's as if a cube could somehow tell a line, "I know you can't see it at the moment, but you will escape your limited dimension and know exactly who and what I am.  Just trust me on that."  OK, God, I think I can handle that much.