I don't want a BIG God.
I don’t want a big God.
I think I encountered what may be a fundamentalist Christian today.
This person told me "my" God is "small".
I assume she thought she was being prophetic, but she is right. My god is small.
My God is very small.
This is the same person who once told me that if I prayed I would discover that Jesus would want the US in Iraq. Like Al Quadea, I guess her Holy Book instructs her that killing in the name of God, "righteousness" and "truth" is okay.
This person serves a BIG god.
This BIG God has blessed their church after is split from another. Neo-puritanism?
I don’t want to know her big God.
I basically said to this person: "As far as speaking for my God, my "small God" as you refer to him, I left behind everything I ever worked for: my house, job, pension, business, and moved 3,000 miles away from my family and friends to follow my small God. I like my small God. I follow my small God.
"While working in an inner city hospital with homeless heroin addicts, psychiatric patients, cancer and AIDS patients, that is, to serve my small God and my small God's people and creation, I have watched my small God heal broken people's lives.My small God called me from the comfort of my life and "church" into the broken world where those who don't know my small God can meet and be healed by my small God. My small God doesn’t separate himself from folks for "righteous" sake, but my small God embraces and includes those who are not so "righteous"." (I imagine righteous is defined by whoever agrees with this person.)
This Person basically said that the only hope for the "least of these" is for the church to recognize that God is relational, but also a righteous RULER.
I said: "No, the only hope is that Christians who like to talk from the security of the computers and comfort of their homes is to get off their mundane, comfortable, self-righteous asses and enter the world where Jesus lives and heals and to have the guts to follow their BIG God.""Stop their rhetoric get on about the business of healing and restoration of God's world. Lay your life on the line for your BIG God. You don't have to ask, COME LORD JESUS, Jesus has come, and he is calling you to COME. come out of hiding behind your self-righteousness and the smugness of your Pharisee-private world and risk something with your faith. Stop masquerading your hate for those who disagree with you as "righteousness and truth.""God is calling you to repent. Jesus is calling you to repent".
This person is right, my God is a SMALL God.
But this isn't MY God, this is THE God. The GREAT I AM, the GOD WHO IS became small and that is the miracle of the Good News.
Big gods and their followers hate and kill for their big god.
That God is too BIG.
I can’t follow a BIG GOD, not since I encountered the God who made himself small.
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!"
I serve a very "small" God.
And THE small God is calling us to drop the rocks, repent and come follow Him... to become small yourself.
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose."
9 Comments:
Apparently I had the comments turned off on this post? Thanks for the heads-up!
For some reason this post is not allowing comments to appear on the screen? I appreciate the emails and will try to correct it. Thanks!
I finally got my comments working.
Sorry to Rick In Va., I decided that I didn't like your tone and pushed a button to delete your comments.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this very issue. truth is, both views of God, either the personal one, or the judgemental one, are in Scripture.
I left one thought process for another and found out that I was wrong. trew out the baby with the bathwater type deal. I call it my post modern detour.
we cling to the one we are most comfortable with. God wiped out entire races of people, for His glory and His purpose.
He also let john the Baptist stay in jail to die...to further His purpose. Jesus did not go after the young ruler, He let him walk away for His reasons.
He also becomes small to us as we need comfort and care and compassion, desiring us to build relationships for His purpose.
they are both true of this God we serve.
I want to know both. I want to understand both. but my mind seems to be in an either or and not a this and that mode.
I know a lot of fundemental folks. they all think I am a hellion cause i drink beer and smoke good cigars. I think they are anal and should lighten up. both are some what true.
I like reading your stuff rick. you help me think...While I am not a big fan of the emerging church deal, I am a fan of thought. thanks for that.
Thanks Jeff,
I would not cosnider myself apart of the emerging CHurch. I think it is a good thing, but it seems to me to be more of an evangelical movement. I think it is a good think. Folks are reqding decent scholars and connecting with the mystical side of the faith. It is a good thing. Purpose Driven life and high school gyms as churches only go so far.
Certainly the writes of the OT viewed God as flooding the earth to wipe out humanity. Many underdeveloped countries see acts of flooding etc. as acts of God. People assume God is pissed. :)
Thanks for the comments.
Wow, Rick, this post brought tears to my eyes. I've heard the "small God" thing a lot too, but I don't know too many people who actually have the guts to love and follow their "big God." Reading your blog always inspires me to, as you say, get off my ass and go out into the world Jesus came to save and do his work. Thank you for the reminders.
You go Rick! Man, what a great post. I'm sitting at my desk at work on a Monday morning and you just fired me up! Everybody better watch out today because I am AWAKE and ready to roar!
First, I liked your post...please don't get me wrong....
time for that word: BUT
I think Jeff was hitting on a good point and that being that there remains the idea of your co-worker and her big God and your little God. We all have a tendency to make God the way we want God to be... the Israleites made Him a gold cow.... anyway, the one thing that bothered me about your post, is you are being so judgemental.
It is like this, we can have a very open and liberal view of anything, but that view closes tight the moment we pronounce someone else as wrong... and you have done that in this post a couple of times.
Maybe if you had just pointed out the problems without calling for repentence it would have been dialogue rather than judgmental...
Secondly, pointing out that you have sacrificed and given up for your small God...is admirable, you come off as pointing out that you and your God are better because you work in a hospital instead of (fill in the blank)... it's kind of like if you have to say you are spiritual , you aren't.
PS it takes a lot to get me off my but and post...your blog is good!
Funny, NO EXCUSE, I tried to link to your blog and couldn't find it. perhaps, if you don't mind, please send me a link to your blog or email.
I am surprised that you interpreted what I wrote as bragging. I would need to know a little more about you in order to undertsand why you interpreted it that way.
I would ask that you read the post again and try not to "read into it".
My point in discussing what I have done is not about me, it is about MY SMALL GOD. I would hate for you to miss that point. So I will say it again, the point I was making in describing my life wasn't about me, it was about the faithfulness of my SMALL GOD.
The God I know and the GOd that scripture reveals is a God who became very small and emptied himself for the sake of humanity and out of love. I am not sure where the big god stuf comes from. It is an extremely distorted understanding of God in scripture. As you may know, Jesus often speaks of the "kingdom" of God as something, small... like a mustard seed or a pearl... there is a reason for that and if we oberlooked or misunderstand it we often miss out on the beauty of the story of God found in scripture.
So, one more time, just for clarification, my comments about what I have done were not about what I have given up or about me for that matter, but that my small God is very faithful. I trust my small God with my life. I don't have to HIDE behind a big God of my making to make myself right.
I hope this helps clear this up for you.... Thanks for coming by, but please make sure that you post you link or email.:)
Stay small
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