The Christian life is Trinity shaped. That's been our theme all this week on Things Unseen.

I wonder if you've ever seen those puzzle pictures where you're told there are 12 things

hidden in the picture and you must try to find them. For some cognitive reason we seem

to vary a great deal in our ability to spot things like that. But what I used to find when

I did those puzzles was that it might take me a minute or two to spot one or perhaps two,

and then for some reason that probably related to the way our perception works individually,

I would see another and another and another quite quickly. And then things would slow down

before I might or might not spot the last one or two. I think spotting the Trinity in the pages

of the New Testament is a bit like that. And I'd rather suspect that there are some Christians

who faithfully read the New Testament but hardly ever think about the Trinity. But then someone says,

do you see that? Look at this passage. It's about the Trinity. Do you see the Father and the Son

and the Holy Spirit here? And you spot a reference or two and then somehow you get it,

and then you start finding references to the Father and the Son and the Spirit all over the place,

and then you begin to see that the Father and the Son and the Spirit, one God, are present everywhere

you look, even when they're not mentioned like that. I think of one example. Galatians chapter 4 verse 4

is a great Christmas text. It's about the coming of Christ. When the fullness of time had come,

God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under a law, so that eventually we might receive adoption

as sons. That's a Christmas text, but it's actually also about the Father. It's the Father who sent

the Son. And Paul goes on to say that when we receive the adoption as sons, the Spirit comes

into our hearts, the Spirit of the Son, crying, Abba Father. In other words, he's saying,

for us to be conscious of what it means to have God as our Father in Jesus Christ, God as the Father

who sent His Son into the world for our salvation, the Spirit also has to minister in our hearts

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