One of my favorite quotes by Bill Johnson goes something like this, "If we want the peace that passes all understanding we need to be willing to give up the right to understand." In some ways the Christian faith is wonderful in its simplicity: "Put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will inherit eternal life." Parts of the faith are so easy to understand that a child can easily accept them.
But then there are the parts that are not so easy for us to understand. The Trinity is one example. Yes, we believe that God exists as three persons in One God, but how can you explain that? How can one be three and three be one? Yes, we can try to separate the 3 persons by function, but when we do we come dangerously close to an ancient heresy called "Modalism" where God assumes the role of the Father at one time, the Son another and the Holy Spirit at another time. This concept is completely unbiblical.
Trying to explain this whole three in one thing can get really, really tricky. And that's the point: just because we cannot understand or explain something does not make it less true. It is simply true because it is. The Bible says so and I believe it and that settles it.
What we do know, although beyond our understanding is that each person of the Trinity is a person: The Father is a singular person with a distinct personality. The Son the same and the same is true of the Holy Spirit. But, each of these 3 persons are one God. How? I don't know.
St. Augustine tells a wonderful story to illustrate this very point. One day he was walking by the seashore one day trying to comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand.
The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are doing?” “I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile. “But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine. The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”
The Saint was absorbed with such a keen response from the child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished.
There are somethings about God that we are simply unable to comprehend because they are too big for our brains, but it doesn't make them less true. To have the peace that passes understanding we must trust what we may not be able to understand. And that, Beloved, is the mystery of faith.
Shalom!
Jim+