Time, Space and The Trinity
- Sophie Green
- Dec 25, 2024
- 6 min read
I realised something about myself while in prison that took me by complete surprise.
I really like to know what the time is.
For a few days on the wing of the jail that became my home for many months, every cell lost access to its television.
To be honest this didn’t bother me much because I enjoy reading books – except for one thing… the TV was my one source of knowing what the time was!
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone
It wasn’t until I had no way of telling whereabouts I was in the daily rhythm of the jail-regime that I realised just what a disorienting effect it had on me.
I felt lost.
I felt like I was suddenly cut adrift.
I felt like a boat that had been severed from its anchor point and was floating around somewhere – but not exactly sure where!
It was really not a nice feeling at all – and so at the earliest possible opportunity I purchased a cheap alarm clock.
Ever since I left jail I now almost always wear a wrist watch; something I never did before…
Lost!
I’ve noticed a similar sense of anxiety gets induced in some other people if they feel physically lost – i.e. they don’t know where they are in relation to their surroundings, to physical space.
I’m blessed that’s never really happened to me; I’m something of a human homing-pigeon so just seem to be able to sense, intuitively, where I am and which direction is north.
For this reason it doesn’t bother me at all if I don’t know exactly where I am, or don’t have a map or sat-nav, because I’m confident I can always find my way…
But I’m well aware this can prove very annoying to those who aren’t blessed with this gift of an internal compass – especially so if they feel lost and therefore anxious!
Triggering
The conclusion I came to in jail is just how important it is for us human beings to be able to accurately orient ourselves in space and time… if we don’t, we can feel very insecure, very quickly – it’s really triggering.
Exactly the same idea applies in engineering…
One of the great conundrums that flummoxed engineers for decades was how to accurately and repeatably gain a datum-point (a fixed reference point) from which other points could then be measured in three-dimensional space.
People had long figured out how to do this in 2-D (basically get a ruler and ensure you always start measuring from the same place each time), but 3-D was a different ball game entirely!
That was until, one day, a chap called Sir David McMurtry had a eureka moment – and developed an incredibly simple concept to allow things to be accurately measured in three-dimensions.
Sir David, an engineer who’d previously worked on developing the Concorde supersonic passenger aircraft, invented the Touch Trigger Probe. This is a ridiculously simple concept involving three pairs of cylindrical metal rollers and three ball bearings.
McMurtry’s moment of genius in his garage back in the late 1970s solved the conundrum that had so baffled people for years, and kick-started one of the world’s most successful engineering companies, Renishaw, making him an incredibly financially wealthy man.
Something that always impressed about the founder during my time working for his company back in the mid-2000s though was his humility… to everyone this multi-millionaire and world-famous engineer was known simply as ‘Dave Mac’.
The Power of Three
So how do you orient yourself in life; physically, mentally, relationally… and Spiritually?
How do you know where you are in relation to all that’s going on around you, find your niche, work out your particular place in the world and therefore gain the solid sense of emotional security this brings?
It’s all about the power of three…
Just like with Dave Mac’s invention to enable accurate orientation in physical space, we also need three fixed, non-moving points to accurately orient ourselves in any space, including the Spiritual realm.
Holy, Holy, Holy
This is why the concept of the Holy Trinity – there being only one God but three persons within it is absolutely essential to Christianity.
It’s all about orienting yourself accurately and therefore gaining the emotional security of a solid anchor point in life.
“We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.” – how the particular genre of church that I’m part of, The Salvation Army, describes the Holy Trinity
We need all three aspects of the one God to work out who we are, what we’re here for, what our purpose is, what on earth we’re meant to be doing with our lives… and crucially to get a tangible and accurate hold on what this ‘God’ thing is all about!
Without the Holy Trinity, it would be so easy to get things wrong, misinterpret, misunderstand – or worse still be deceived – when it comes to getting our heads round the notoriously difficult-to-comprehend idea of God.
“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” – James 1:6-8
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
The three aspects of the one God are all equally crucial. I could write books on exploring all three – but to be honest far more learned writers than me have already done that, so I’ll summarise here, keeping it brief (I did tell you miracles happen..!)
The Father
To live securely, we all need to know we have a dad looking after us, to protect us, provide for us and fight for us.
God the Father is the perfect Dad – He sees and knows everything; He’s all powerful; and He’s always with you.
The Son (Jesus)
As people we need to feel understood, empathised with. We need a hero to look up to – someone whose example we can follow.
We also need some tangible, relatable way to understand and comprehend ‘God’ – something more earthy, more practical, more nuts-and-bolts than just a nebulous spiritual concept.
Jesus claimed to be – quite literally – God in human-form (which either made him a delusional lunatic, a horrifically-manipulative liar, or else he was actually telling the truth… it’s up to you to decide for yourself which!).
I believe in Jesus – which enables me to have a solid, dependable, unmoving reference point by which to understand God and the truth.
Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6
The Holy Spirit
We all need guidance. We all need reassurance. We all need comforting.
We all need to be able to feel, to sense, God with us in life on a moment-by-moment basis.
The Holy Spirit is the presence of God that dwells in each and every one of us… call it your ‘conscience’; ‘gut feeling’; ‘the still, small voice’; ‘knower’; ‘sense of deep’ or whatever word you find it most helpful to describe it – what we’re talking about is the same thing: the presence of God within you.
By listening to and obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit within us (the Hebrew word for listening and obeying all-in-one is to “shema”), that’s how we can all go well through life.
3,2,1… go, go, go well!
This Christmastime I pray you’ll experience something new and fantastic in your life – something utterly ground-breaking and revolutionary.
I pray you’ll experience all three aspects of the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and therefore become rooted, anchored, accurately oriented and grounded in life – in who you are, where you are and what your life is all about.
I pray you’ll experience the rock-solid solidity believing in all three parts of the Holy Trinity brings, so that when you’re emotionally triggered by anything in life, you’ll quickly be able to return to your unmoving, solid datum-point of peace and rest (just like the stylus of Dave Mac’s Touch Trigger Probe does after it gets displaced by a force).
“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3:17-19
I pray you’ll experience the deep, wonderful emotional security this brings… which will then enable you to go well!
With love,
David
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