In 1991 Amy and I left Southern Seminary, a year before completing our divinity degrees in Lousville, KY, in order to take jobs at First Baptist Church, Clemson, SC. When we moved to Clemson to become the Minister of Youth and Senior Adults (Russ) and the Minister of College Students and Single Adults (Amy), and to complete our seminary work at Erskine Theological Seminary (Associate Reform Presbyterian Church), we bought our first house. I’ll never forget the feeling of signing my name to that note for $84,000. I couldn’t imagine that much money. We even traded Amy’s Nissan 300ZX for a Dodge Spirit to make the payments! (Oh… what a trade!) Five years later when we moved to Birmingham, AL, Amy seven months into her first pregnancy, we talked about real estate before we moved, and thought that maybe we’d “splurge” a little, move up, stretch ourselves and spend maybe $100k there.
Yeah. Right.
Welcome to the world of Mountain Brook, AL, and the sticker shock that comes with moving just before the housing market bubble burst. After diligent searching, and a wonderful, patient real estate agent, we found something we thought we could live with — not in Mountain Brook, but close enough, and stretching, stretching to $107,000, in a wonderful little house that our realtor told us “had potential.” Boy, did it! (When you buy the cheapest house in the neighborhood, he reasoned… a house with “potential”… you can expect to make some money on it when you move, if you’ve been a little diligent to see some of that potential actualized.)
Because this blog is not about home renovations, I’ll spare you the details, but because of the hours and hours we spent on the house, when we sold the “cat house” (ask me if you care) a few years later, we had realized some of its potential, and were able to cash in a few bucks. That house had potential.
God does not.
God is always God. Fully actualized divinity. (Interestingly, in his book Jesus and the Inigma of the Son of the Man, Walter Wink says that divinity is actually fully realized, fully actualized humanity.) Fully realized potential. When God told Moses, “I am that I am” (more on this in the coming blog on ”Does”), we learned all we needed to know. God is not the God who will be… tomorrow. Maybe. If you pray the right words. Live faithfully enough. If all the stars are lined up right. If …
God IS. God. Always.
When people speak of the intervening God who is all-powerful, they encourage us to pray — because prayer “works,” and because God “answers prayers.” The implication is clear. God may be more for you (do more for you) tomorrow (in some time of need, in a crisis, when you get on your knees and pray earnestly), more than God is for you, today. This makes perfect sense to me as I think of friends, family. When the chips are down, friends and family have a tendency to come through. Thanks be to God. To be/do more in a time of need than they are any other day. But this no longer makes sense to me of the God who is the “I am.”
What more could God be or do (since God’s being is God’s doing (“I Am” is a verb)) on any tomorrow than God is today?
When I had a nephew in a coma, the result of a tragic Automobile accident, and we prayed that that inevitable death might be stayed… what did we expect? That God would do more tomorrow than God was doing today? That God was withholding some kind of potential, today, to wait and see if God would be more of who God could be… tomorrow? What a dreadful theology! When we prayed for God to “do something,” what did that mean? How could God possibly “do” more tomorrow than God is doing today?
In every moment in that tragic situation, along with every moment of every tragic, and joyful situation — God Is. Always. God.
God never witholds potential. How could “I Am” ever be more (or less) than “I Am” is, right now?
4 Comments
The use of the word intervening seems inappropriate.
We are not removed (separate) from God in this creation. It is in God in whom we live and move and have our being. So if we are here and God is here then there can be no intervention. To intervene is to come between. I prefer the word interact. God acts and we react. Since his action is first some may call that intervening because they want to be left alone. God first loved us which is why we can love him. He makes the first move.
To those who think he is far off or detached he has to be an intervening God by definition. Those who think that he is near respond to his call.
But in either case, our action or inaction is not meant to change God.
God may not have potential to change but we do. We are the ones changing. He is the one interacting with us.
Rom 8:29b he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.
The implication IS clear. You may be more for God (God able to do more through you) in some time of need, in a crisis, when you get on your knees and pray earnestly, more than you are capable for today. We can be changed by the renewing of our mind.
God never witholds potential. Aren’t we glad!
Rom 8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
God acts (calls)
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And there are those who respond:
Matthew 5:44-48 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
God calls to us because he wants to include us as friends and family.
John 15:15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. 16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
So he is interacting with us every moment of every situation — God Is. Always. God. Right Now.
Sherman, and I can’t tell if you’re agreeing or disagreeing. It sounds to me like you are disagreeing (“The use of the word intervening seems inappropriate.”) — but this is exactly what I said. I do not believe God intervenes — for the very reason you say (which is exactly what I said!) So… maybe for once we’re exactly agreeing, even if I don’t understand it as such!
Very nice site!
Thanks, John1725… Do I know you?