I’ve been reading Michael Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity during my morning devotions and one thing struck me as he was describing how God works in creation. He speaks of God’s love in creation and then spends a page and a half detailing what the Puritan Richard Sibbes said of God’s bountiful nature in making all things fruitful. Reeve’s paraphrases Sibbes’ meaning as follows:

“That is, God is simply bursting with warm and life-imparting nourishment, far more willing to give than we are to receive.”

He then makes note of what Sibbes says the effect of this life giving God should be on his followers:

“Those that are led with the Spirit of God, that are like him; they have a communicative, diffusive goodness that loves to spread itself.”

I had never made the connection between the triune nature of God and how he wants his children to emulate him. Of course we are to grow in Christlikeness but how? What does this look like? Most of the time I focus on the lists, the do’s and the don’ts. But I think we learn more of what we’re being called to when we look at the nature of God and notice the clues from his creation. If God is this life-imparting fountain, this being of ineffable generosity, then it would make sense that his creation would be designed in such a way that in order to be most healthy and most blessed, it would give and love and multiply for the good of others. It would not be like the Dead Sea which is a terminus, a cul-de-sac, if you will. Always receiving, but never giving out.

And what about us? What about me? Am I a cul-de-sac? Do I receive the blessings of God for my own benefit without passing them on? Do I hoard them for myself alone? Or am I a conduit of God’s blessing and love, spreading his blessing to others? Lately I have felt a kind of conviction about certain behaviors that goes beyond the black and whiteness of do this/don’t do that. This new kind of conviction is pointing me higher, to the calling of the Christian to be like this ever-blessing triune God.

Amy Carmichael wrote a book of poetry called Toward Jerusalem. In it, she has a poem that has become a prayer for me and now takes on deeper meaning as I meditate on the triune nature of God.

Love Through Me

Love through me, Love of God,

Make me like Thy clear air

Through which unhindered, colours pass

As though it were not there.

Powers of the love of God,

Depths of the heart Divine,

O Love that faileth not, break forth,

And flood this world of Thine.