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The beautiful mystery of human existence is not how we got here.  If you can't see the fingerprints of God in the mind-blowing design and order in the world, you're not looking.  The amazing mystery is that we are made in His image.  We are spirit, mind, and body.  God said, "Let Us..." emphasis on the "Us."  A much more astounding mystery is the tri-unity of God:  one God existing in three separate and completely harmonious persons.  To better understand our personhood, our spirit, mind, and body, we must seek a deeper understanding of the God in Whose image we are created.

The ancient story begins like this:  "In the begining..."  It was the begining of what we call space, time, and matter.  Until this begining, all we know that existed was in the realm of the spirit, what the Apostle Paul calls the third heaven.  Perhaps, the reason the ancient story begins here is because the human mind cannot comprehend what was before that-in the spirit realm, apart from space/time continuum.  That God always existed, and that He perhaps made the angels long before the human begining, seems to have long been the cause of fried cerebral circuitry. 

So, in the begining there was some kind of chaotic mass hanging in the nothingness of the newly created space/time continuum.  The first person of the Trinity that appears there is Who we call the third person, or the Holy Spirit, Who is hovering over the chaotic mass of water and other matter.  Why?  If we are made in His image and likeness, what would cause a human to hover, linger, or wait around for something?  Expectancy.  Longing.  Desire.  The Holy Spirit was the first person of the Godhead on scene hovering over the water, waiting, perhaps, desiring expectantly.  Jesus was led into the desert by this same person of the Triune Godhead.  The Apostle Paul was led to not go to Asia Minor, then later prompted by the Holy Spirit to go.  One hundred and twenty believers turned Jerusalem and the whole world on its ear after the Holy Spirit came and rested like tongues of fire upon them.  It seems, perhaps, this Holy Spirit is sort of the heart's desire of God-He leads, He gets things started.  He is the Holy Initiator.

It is the part of humans that is the most mysterious, and least is understood about it, the spirit inside of man.  I put it first, because the ancient story did.  It's the part of us that comprehends eternity, that longs for something new and beautiful, and that leads us into the peril of causing it to happen-from some chaotic nothingness, from the wide-open spaces of the unknown.  It is man's spirit that pulls him toward relationship with God (not religion), Who is spirit, and Who must be worshipped, experienced, and related to in spirit and truth.  The human spirit is the unseen core of us, our heart, the "who we really are" underneath all the external flesh and personality.  And because it will live forever, it leads us into realizing who we really are, what we were purposed for by the mind of God.

Giving us a glimpse into the character of the first person of the Trinity, the Father, Jesus Christ said this:  "I can do nothing but what my Father tells me, " and, "what I do is for the glory of the Father."  If the Holy Spirit is the desire of God, the Initiator, then God the Father must be the architect, the planner, the mind, if you will.  Also, Jesus spoke of the desire of the Father to glorify His son, making Him Lord over all.  The way the Father relates to His son is to nurture, to protect, and to bring His plan to fruition through Christ in a disciplined, chaste process.  The glory each would recieve was from the other, and their pride was in their relationship-connected to each other in perfection and holiness.  As a human father, I work hard to provide for my sons.  My pride is not turning them into hyper-successful adults, but merely in being a big part of helping them become, and giving them opportunities to do so.  There is compassion, love, and discipline as we all "draft" our days to come, with or without relation to offspring.  It's the knowing part of us-our mind.  It is the part of us that sees ahead, plans, and then facilitates those plans with a disciplined will.

John, the Beloved of Christ began his written account of the ministry of Christ with the proclamation that Jesus was the Word Who was with God in the beginning, and was God, and that all things were made by Him and for Him.  The second person of the Trinity we call "the Son" is the One Who made it all happen.  He put hammer to nail to the plans of the Father that came from the hovering, or desire of the Holy Spirit.  "The Word" spoke the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them into existence and caused them to function orderly.  The word "universe" literally means "spoken word."  The Holy Spirit is the initiator, the Father is the facilitator, and the Son is the actuator-the action to the Eternal Desire and Plan.  We reflect Him in our bodies-arms, legs, feet, hands, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.  The desire in our spirit causes our minds to plan, and our bodies bring it into reality.  Jesus is God incarnate, God in human flesh.  He left the spirit realm of Heaven to become a human, one of us, to redeem the fallen human race back to the heart of the Father-back into relationship with the Godhead, which is His desire.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God came in flesh and did the work.  The action of Salvation came through Him.  Anything we accomplish as humans we do so with our bodies-our flesh and bones, muscle and sinew. 

We were made in His image and likeness.  We were made to long for perfect beauty, to fulfill the purpose, the plan inside us, and to live forever actuating the glory of God.  The mystery of mysteries, the Triune God, is infinite, and infinitely deep.  That is perfect beauty.  As we come to understand Who God is, there will always be that much more of Him to discover.  He has set eternity in the heart of man.  And even though we are challenged in our understanding of this, on some level we can understand and appreciate that eternity is an incredible adventure-another reflection of God in us.