who is God?

Describing Who God Is...
These are just some rough notes and thoughts from a research paper I am currently working on that I wanted to preserve.

God is a loving shared relationship, complete with the vulnerability that giving unconditional love requires and also the holiness which pure love demands. ‘Relationship’ may seem an odd description to choose in attempting to define God but I think it truly is how God wants me to view and understand him. It is through the interaction, the obedience, and the vulnerability that the Trinity shares within itself that God reveals his character and demonstrates a trustworthiness that reaches out to me. And it is through God’s fierce and persistent protection of this relationship that I see and learn what true love and life abundant are all about.

To learn who God is, I begin by looking at the triune relationship of the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit. Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, a deeply personal relationship with the Father is revealed. This relationship involves a willingness from both sides. Jesus’ obedience to the Father’s will even in the most difficult of situations demonstrates not just a sense of duty to the Father, but a loving and joyful obedience.  It is a love in action. And we also see the Holy Spirit consistently interacting with Jesus, as ultimately it is "through the Holy Spirit" that Jesus ascends into heaven to be with the Father (Acts 1:2).  Throughout the gospels we see how "interconnected the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Christians, love and obedience are. The very fabric of who we are is an intricate tapestry of relationships and actions" (1).

God is a relationship shared in love. He is not, however, just demonstrating an example of what a loving relationship can look like, he is actually offering participation in that relationship to me. My heart is daily being prepared as a home for the Holy Spirit to reside within. God is inviting me deeper into the personal relationship Jesus has with the Father, as I allow myself to become obedient to the Spirit’s urgings. Author Donald Fairbairn tells us that "if we were to simply love because he loved us, then that would mean that we love on our own, merely by imitating Christ. But we now know that the Holy Spirit lives within us – helping us, enabling us, leading us to love others" (1).  I love not because I know how to, but because God shares his relationship of love with me.

As I look closely at what the Trinitarian relationship is inviting me into, I cannot help but see a God who is reliable, who inspires confidence and courage, and who is a protecting Abba Father. Author James Bryan Smith sums up the attributes of God into six adjectives: present, pure, powerful, provides, pardons, and protects. If God is these things, then a relationship with God is completely good. "In all of his stories, Jesus describes a God who seems altogether good and is always out for our good, even if we cannot understand it" (3).

I may not fully comprehend how our triune God can lavish love so extravagantly, but I can trust that God does and that the offer is extended to me. "God’s desire for us is that we should live in him… That shows what, in his heart of hearts, God is really like – indeed, what reality is really like. In its deepest nature and meaning our universe is a community of boundless and totally competent love" (4).   The invitation into this community involves both a willingness from God as leader and myself as follower but the interactions of the Trinity perfectly model this willingness within its own members. This is illustrated in examples such as when Jesus freely states, "not my will but yours be done" to the Father (Luke 22:42).

And as with any invitation, there also exists a vulnerability as to what the response will be in return. God, who used his power to create our beautiful universe, does not shy away from entering this fragile state. He chose to enter the manger and the cross, perhaps to demonstrate vulnerability as a strength and place self-sacrifice as the highest act of all. "I think we have trouble with God feeling joy and pain because we think they are beneath God," but to dare to give love with the risk of it not being returned takes strength (3).  God wants love and "thus he seeks for those who could safely and rightly worship him." (5) But there still exists the possibility of unrequited love, even for God. I think Smith sums up God’s motivation for sharing his love best when he states "here is a key principle of the kingdom of God: What we let go of will never be lost but becomes a thing of beauty" (3).

God willingly demonstrates a vulnerable state within the interactions of the Trinity and he does so in order to relate to us, but nothing is lost or ambiguous in that situation. God is always consistent and his will is rational.  God is holy in all his decisions. "Biblical revelation suggests that the single most important word to describe God is holy" (2).   So just as important as it is for me to understand God’s open obedience and loving tenderness, God also seeks to comfort us with his holy power. God is mindfully objective in his opposition to evil. "God is fiercely and forcefully opposed to the things that destroy his precious people" (3).

God has already taken the steps to defeat my enemy. "God destroyed sin by making the supreme sacrifice himself, taking all of the guilt and pain and suffering of my sin upon himself" (3).   He is powerfully aware of my situation precisely because he has been vulnerable enough to enter into my life. I can trust an intimate relationship with God because his nature is to both will good for me and oppose sin simultaneously. ?At the heart of the Holy Mystery there is an immense and outrageous love that gives us life, accepts us as we are, draws us forward into wholeness and will never let us go. The fire of God’s holiness is the fire of blazing love" (2).  God is both "kind and severe" – and we want him to be that way (3).

Dallas Willard spoke about the power of relationship and how our relationships, when filled with love, truth, and power, can magnify God (5). What a thought - that how I relate to others can amplify God himself. Through observing the relationship within the Trinity, the experience of my own relationship with God, and through my interactions with others around me, I not only learn who God is but I also get to be transformed by participation in God’s beautiful reign of relationship here on earth. 
Sources:
1) Fairbairn, Donald. Life in the Trinity; An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers. Downers Grove: InnerVarsity Press, 2009.
2) Hudson, Trevor. Discovering Our Spiritual Identity: Practices for God’s Beloved. Downers Grove: InnerVarsity Press, 2010.
3) Smith, James Bryan. The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows. Downers Grove: InnerVarsity Press, 2009.
4)Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997.
5) Willard, Dallas. "The Kingdom of God." Teaching series for Hollywood Presbyterian Church, Hollywood, March – April, 1990.
6) The Life with God Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Harper Collins, 1989.