In this episode of the Things Above podcast, James Bryan Smith gives this thought from above: “God is happy about you.” When Jim’s son Jacob was around 7 years old he asked him a question that brought tears to Jim’s eyes. Jacob walked up to his dad and asked, “Are you happy about me?” While Jacob’s grammar was incorrect his desire was not. He wanted to know, like many of us do, if the person he loved also loved him back.

Of course most of us want everyone to think well of us. And it hurts when we discover someone dislikes us, or is upset with us. But at our deepest core we long to know if the significant people in our lives are truly “happy about us.” Smith speculates that most of us live with some amount of deficit when it comes to truly feeling loved—loved without condition—by the significant people in our lives. That is why, for Smith, the real healing comes not from chasing the love and acceptance, but rather that healing comes when we encounter the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

James quotes the late great theologian Ray Anderson to help explain the connection between the Trinity and this idea of being happy about our existence. Anderson writes “ministry precedes theology.” Ministry refers to the action of God on our behalf. And the action of God—God’s ministry toward us—determines our theology—what we think about God.

So theology is not merely dry speculation about God, for that we need to look at God’s ministry, namely, what God has done. Now we turn to the Christian story. God became human. The word of God took on flesh and dwelled among us. The Son of God, by the power of the Spirit, healed and forgave and showed love to the least, the lost and the unlovely. The second member of the Trinity—Jesus—willingly died in order to cancel our debt of sin, to reconcile us to God. That is God’s ministry—or rather, the Trinity’s ministry—on our behalf. What does that ministry teach us theologically? Smith would say that these actions loudly state that the Trinity is happy about us!

Smith closes with one of his favorite quotes of all time from John of Kronstadt. “When you are dejected, remember this: that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun.”

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