Follow Me

The Triune God and what to do when one member is missing in your life.

Jun 03, 2024

When you become or grow up as a Christian, you learn immediately that God is a Triune God. He is God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In that order.

I love the mystery of the Trinity and imagining what it means. As a child, it wasn’t hard to imagine, I suspect, because children have better imaginations. One way I heard the Trinity described is as a human who is, at the same time, a father, a son, and a husband. Though this captures the simultaneous roles, it still doesn’t capture the separateness of the Trinity. There’s a great illustration called The Shield of the Trinity that I find fascinating and is probably the best way of understanding it:

A beautiful illustration that only the Lord could have inspired someone to create.

As a Christian, I have grown up knowing the Father God and feeling his presence, hearing his voice, and, most importantly, sensing his guidance. I also blogged about the day that I met the Holy Spirit. However, in the last few years, I have realized that one member of the Holy Trinity is “missing,” as it were, in my life: Jesus. This came as a shock to me because I love Jesus and know everything there is to know about him from a human perspective, having read the Gospel many times.

He’s also preached about and centralized in sermons as part of church life, and we sing about him and talk about how he loves us and his sacrifice for humanity. Christmas and Easter are all about him. It’s all very familiar to me. And yet, I find that having access to Jesus is difficult.

I sense the Father’s love and guidance, and I sense the Holy Spirit’s comfort, wisdom, and teaching, but I don’t know where to put Jesus in that.

It has been quite a season of grappling for me. I even wondered if I truly believed! But I know I do; it’s just, what does it all mean?

The Jesus Dream

Then I had a dream, and Jesus was in it! It was quite special and I think of it often.

It was Sept 2022, and the short version is that I was looking through a window and a man who I thought was my Dad was beside me. We talked about shipping a package across the street to this old lady walking by. I finally said I’d do it, and right before I left, I turned to my “dad,” who now had turned into Jesus, and asked him all these questions about if he had “x” (I don’t remember what it was). He said yes, and I kept asking him if he had all these things, and he would open his coat and show me before I even asked that he indeed had all the things I was asking for. Then I decided we had all we needed to go, and he went in front of me, and I followed him down some stairs, fully confident he knew where we were going and what we would do. Then I woke up!

In this season of grappling with Jesus, I am putting it in the context of this dream. What does it mean to follow Jesus? What does it mean for him to be a present part of our everyday lives?

Jesus Says, “Follow Me.”

We are taught that Jesus died for our sins, rose again, and is reigning victoriously, but what does that mean for me today? We are taught that he says to love your enemies and bless those who curse you, but how does he fit into that action each day?

The scripture that I have hung onto during this time is this very practical one:

Philip said to Him,
“Lord, show us the Father,
and it is sufficient for us.”
Jesus said to him,
“Have I been with you so long,
and yet you have not known Me, Philip?
He who has seen Me has seen the Father;
so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
John 14:8-9 (NKJV)

Or my version:

“Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Beverly? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Going back to the Trinity, seeing Jesus is seeing the Father, so maybe seeing the Father is seeing Jesus? And seeing the Holy Spirit is seeing Jesus? This is still not a satisfying answer for me, though.

So, I recently re-read the Gospels with this specific question in mind: How does one Follow Jesus? Again, there was not much closure for this gnawing question for me after it; I still had the same questions of closeness and wanting to draw nearer.

So now I have come to the realization that the only way and the only person who can help me with revelation about this is Jesus himself. So I am waiting for revelation and knowledge on what it means to follow Jesus—which I think I am actively doing but don’t feel like I’m actively doing.

Some “Follow Mes”

Matthew 16:24 ESV
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Matthew 4:19 ESV
And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Luke 9:23 ESV
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
John 10:27 ESV
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
Mark 10:21 ESV
And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
BONUS: Matthew 25:40 NLT
“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’