A Trinitarian Worldview - Part V: Being Relational

Our personaity, who we are, is grounded in who God is. We are persons, we are relational because God is a personal, relational God. You have heard it said that you are what you eat. It is more appropriate to say we are who He is:

²⁶Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

²⁷God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

²⁸God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 1:26-28 (NASB)

What does that mean for us? We hold certain characteristics as a result of being mad ein His image to rule over the creation He made. As a result of this we are:

• Creative: we enjoy the visual and performing arts, we enjoy making things
  
• Communication: we dialogue in community, speaking and listening to each other
  
• Objective: we engage in the study of science and history
• Emotive: expressing joy, sadness and anger
• Mortal: Unlike an eternal God, we live through cycles of birth and death. But I feel we must in order to look up to the divine form our positions as fragile and mortal and in need of His protection
  
• Friendly: we seek out and engage in community
• Intimate: we look for and cherish romantic and sexual relationships. However, they can only reach the full potential designed by God if fulfilled in the man and woman marraige bond. This comes closer to the intimacy felt within the Trinity than any other human relationship can.
  
• Just: we seek to exercise justice, but hopefully tempered with mercy
• Discerning: we can distinguish between fantasy and reality (well, most of us can most of the time)

As we engage in these characteristics we are more or less like God in how we carry them out, depending on our individual characters and the circumstances we find ourselves in. But it is clear that we are wired to be relational, both with God and with each other. God is self-sufficient, we are not. But then, God is three persons in one essence and we are not.

Are there one or more of these that really click with you as bringing closer in relationship with God because you feel you model them more as He would have you rather than less?