Process Sovereignty vs Church Sovereignty

Amazon Link

Applying an ever more radical hermeneutics (including Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Derridian deconstruction, and feminism), John D. Caputo breaks down the name of God in this irrepressible book. Instead of looking at God as merely a name, Caputo views it as an event, or what the name conjures or promises in the future. For Caputo, the event exposes God as weak, unstable, and barely functional. While this view of God flies in the face of most religions and philosophies, it also puts up a serious challenge to fundamental tenets of theology and ontology. Along the way, Caputo's readings of the New Testament, especially of Paul's view of the Kingdom of God, help to support the "weak force" theory. This penetrating work cuts to the core of issues and questions―What is the nature of God? What is the nature of being? What is the relationship between God and being? What is the meaning of forgiveness, faith, piety, or transcendence?―that define the terrain of contemporary philosophy of religion.

Begin reading immediately - Kindle Link

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A God of Process Sovereignty

Our view of God's Sovereignty must change from one of power to one of weakness. God is the opposite of being nihilistic or militaristic... God is exactly what Jesus showed us He is. No spears, clubs, nor high-minded threats of ending governments and innocent lives in the name of Christ. Nay. God is gentle, meek, merciful and loving.

Conversely, we would expect man's God to be a vigorous, red-meat eating bloody military general, wouldn't we? But of the God we see in Jesus this is not so.... Our longing for unrighteous power and ill-gained safehaven in the shadows of the rich and powerful can find no substitute for God's loving strength and holy guidance in this life nor the next.

Process theology says God is embedded in all things, meaning, God's power is unlimited. It is as large as the universe. But that this power is meant for wellbeing, creational care, nourishment, and healing of body, mind, soul and spirit. A militaristic God styled after King David of the OT gets you nowhere. Just the satisfaction that your worldly God is something the true God really isn't. A proper definition of God's Sovereignty must be a loving God full of mercy and forgiveness. One who lived life caring and healing others. And in death, did the same.

What about the God of the apocalyptic revelation coming to destroy the world? Again, not true. We might destroy ourselves as we are continually predicting but God will not, and cannot, because of who God is as loving and good. But aren't all eschatological stories based on stories of holy vengeance and justice? You know, the Wyatt-Earp-kinds-of-justice staged at the OK-Corrals-of-the-world where the bad guys get what's coming to them? Sure, those shoot-em-up-endings portray their muscular, powerful stories of protecting the innocent from the cruel, the ideal from the wayward. Yet God doesn't work this way. God isn't loving one moment and vengeful the next. Sure, God is grieved and harmed by our actions towards one another but God is Spirit and we are God's fleshly hands and feet to conduct a loving, caring, restorative justice. Not a justice of harm and cruelty. We are therefore to conduct ourselves in ministrations of care... not continue the donkey wheel of injustice, harm, and hate.

Let's just say then that the book of Revelation is man's metaphorical image of God and not the picture of the true Jesus-God. Naturally it is a yearning of the Christian Church that hell be swallowed up by the cross of Jesus along with all antichrists and wicked prophets of the world. But if God's Sovereignty is epitomized in Jesus then we should suspect one of us is wrong. Either our idolatry of God is wrong as pictured by the church's idolatry of God's sovereignty always described in terms of bloody return. Or, the eschatological hope we carry for vengeful justice is wrong. Perhaps Revelation was written as a warning to the church to reign-in our lusts and megalomaniac dreams of domineering world power under religious rule. To content ourselves rather in love's healing ministries and restorative justice. Without this character in our spirits our metaphorical gods will rise up and eat us alive in hatred and cruelty where no one can stand and there can be no atonement left save for death.

R.E. Slater

May 29, 2021

 

The Power of God's Love

by R.E. Slater

Held in the loving power of Jesus

        is the God of the universe...

  His divine power supersedes all others,

              His divine love undergirds

                                the foundations of the world...

                         upon which we who walk this earth

               seek a home not of our own...

                             but of loving nourishment,

          wellbeing, soul healing,

  and nurturing care...

                                                    

                                          R.E. Slater
                                               May 29, 2021

Bible Verses about Power Through God

Most Relevant Verses - https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Power-Through-God 

Acts 3:12

But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

2 Corinthians 4:7

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;

2 Corinthians 12:9

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Ephesians 1:19-20

and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,

Ephesians 3:20

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

 

Colossians 1:29

For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

2 Corinthians 6:7

in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left,

Daniel 2:23

“To You, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise,

For You have given me wisdom and power;

Even now You have made known to me what we requested of You,

For You have made known to us the king’s matter.”

Daniel 2:37

You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory;

1 John 4:4

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

2 Corinthians 13:3

since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.

Luke 9:1

And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases.

John 14:12

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

Acts 4:33

And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all.

1 Corinthians 15:43

it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

2 Corinthians 10:4

for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Colossians 1:11

strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously

2 Thessalonians 1:11

To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power,

2 Timothy 1:8

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God...

Book Review - The Uncontrolling Love of God, by Thomas Jay Oord

A God of love births love in splendorous ways by granting agency to love from His Being or Essence. Not by decree or coercion but through who He is. Love is, because God is.

So too creational agency. An agency of becoming we might think of as freewill. As God has agency so too His creation has agency. Again, not by decree but because of God's Self, Being, or Essence.

The paradox is evil and how past church creeds and traditions misapplied ideas of God's Sovereignty to human culpability. Though God is sovereign He is sovereign not because He controls creation but because He releases it from His control to become as He is: "A serving God of sacrificial love and care. Of wound binding, healing, nurture and wisdom."

But this also speaks of a very weak form of sovereignty whose weakness is observed by our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul to be God's greatest power. Again, a paradox. Would a powerful God allow evil? Illness? Suffering? Or be crucified on a cross? No, but a God of love who leads by love, who is love, would. This kind of love allows agency, not control. Though our ideas of God seems to be one of power, strength, absolute determination, and judgment, they are but very pagan forms of God-ness inherited by the much older religions even earlier then the Greeks.

Nor is a loving, giving, guiding God of the bible what God's followers in the bible expected. They wanted protection, deliverance, sustenance. And therein lies the struggle both in the bible narratives as well as in the histories of the church. A powerful God of judgment loses the idea of a loving God of care guiding his creation to become more than it is.

God's agency is certainly not a sovereignty / rule by coercion. Nor peevishness. Nor authoritarianism. No, a God of love shares Himself through His creation that it might become as He is becoming. Where together, both God and creation, may fulfill the bounty of the other in fellowship and communion.

In the end, we pray that God may act in our lives in ways which we may not be understandable but known by its fruit bearing goodness and love. Not only in our lives but in the lives of those around us and very nature itself in earthcare and restoration.

R.E. Slater

March 30, 2020

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The Uncontrolling Love of God:

An Open and Relational Account of Providence

by Thomas Jay Oord

BOOK REVIEW by W. Tyler

March 28, 2020

In this helpful and thought-provoking book, Thomas Jay Oord presents a love-based model of providence (which he calls the "essential kenosis" model) that fits very nicely in the framework of open theism, with special attention to making sense of our lived experiences in a world that is filled with "regularities and randomness, freedom and agency, good and evil". In wrestling with the apparent tension between divine power and divine love (which is ultimately the central locus of any discussion of providence), Oord opts to prioritize love in a logically consistent way, arguing that any account of God's action in the world which allows God absolute power over even the smallest part of creation logically fails to prioritize love. In the negative sense, this is because a God of absolute power exacerbates the problem of evil by adding to it what others have called "the scandal of particularity"; if God can stop events whose overall effects are evil, but chooses not to, then God is culpable for that evil. In the positive sense, this is simply the nature of self-giving love, and this extends all the way to the most fundamental laws of physics: "Regularities of existence—so-called natural laws—emerged in evolutionary history as new kinds of organisms emerged in response to God's love. The consistency of divine love creates regularities as creatures respond, given the nature of their existence and the degree and range of agency they possess. God's eternal nature of love both sets limits and offers possibilities to each creature and context, depending on their complexity. In this, God's love orders the world. And because God's nature is love, God cannot override the order that emerges." Oord takes special care to note that this is not the same as saying that God voluntarily limits his own power in the service of love; rather, God's power derives from his love, and so the power that we often attribute to God simply does not exist whenever it would conflict with love, and in particular whenever it would involve unilaterally overriding the so-called natural order that itself derives from God's love. It is worth mentioning here that even though Oord's proposal focuses a lot of attention on what God cannot do, this is only to clear away the reader's preconceptions, and would perhaps not be necessary were it not for the long theological tradition of depicting God as an absolute sovereign. The constructive part of Oord's proposal is substantial, so his is not a merely negative account of providence.

These basic assertions have surprising implications. One is an apparent solution the problem of evil: "This model of providence says God necessarily gives freedom to all creatures complex enough to receive and express it. Giving freedom is part of God's steadfast love. This means God cannot withdraw, override or fail to provide the freedom a perpetrator of evil expresses. God must give freedom, even to those who use it wrongly. ... Essential kenosis [also] explains why God doesn't prevent evil that simple creatures with agency cause or even simpler entities with mere self-organizing capacities cause. God necessarily gives the gift of agency and self-organization to entities capable of them because doing so is part of divine love. God's other-empowering love extends to the least and simplest of these. God cannot withdraw, override or fail to provide agency and self-organization to any simply organism or entity that causes genuine evil. The kenotic love of God necessarily provides agency and self-organization. God's moment-by-moment gifts are irrevocable. Consequently, God is not culpable for failing to prevent the evil that basic entities, organisms, and simple creatures may cause." An auxiliary claim is that even though God is present to all places at all times, he is not present in a bodily way, so that he must work lovingly and persuasively through and in creation rather than acting unilaterally from outside of creation; God actually needs the free cooperation of creation in order to redeem evil. Another surprising assertion is that God experiences time in a way analogous to our own experience of time, and in particular that God does not know the future. This is motivated partly by the understandable (but not incontestable) claim that God's foreknowledge would render creaturely freedom an illusion. Perhaps more importantly, this claim is motivated by the idea that "Love is an adventure without guaranteed results". While I appreciate the intuition behind this, I find myself skeptical of the idea that God experiences time with us; I find myself asking, "Where in the universe does God experience time?", because according to relativity, time flows differently in different places, and in fact time is wrapped up with the spatial dimensions of reality. Further, no two events taking place in different locations can be said to happen simultaneously. How then should we understand God's experience of time in light of God's omnipresence? This is not necessarily an unsolvable problem, but I find myself in want of a fuller explanation of how this problem might be solved.

Finally, Oord has an incredible exposition on how miracles fit into the essential kenosis model. Essentially, God is always working with and in creation, constantly opening up new possibilities if we cooperate; when our cooperation results in unusual good that appears to fall outside what we would call "natural", then a miracle has occurred. Because both the natural order and miraculous events derive from God's love with the cooperation of creation, there is no clear line between the natural and the miraculous; there is an irreducibly subjective, relational aspect to miracles. This coheres well with much of what the Bible depicts as miraculous; it especially sheds light on Jesus' oft-repeated phrase "Your faith has made you well," as well as his claimed inability to perform miracles for faithless people. It also helps explain why miracles are not always consistent; even for those who have faith, a miracle may not occur if some other aspect of creation is especially resistant to that miracle. My only complaint here is that Oord does not address biblical events attributed to God which are unambiguously harmful and unloving, such as the plague of death in Exodus. On the one hand, such events are not miracles at all by Oord's definition, since they are not good; on the other hand, one can hardly avoid calling such events miracles, since they appear to be the direct result of unusual divine action. The only way forward that I can envision here is to recognize that such events, though attributed to God by the biblical authors, cannot have actually happened as recorded if God is truly the God of love revealed perfectly in Christ. I am quite prepared to take this course, but other readers may not be.

Oord is to be praised for so consistently prioritizing love in a way that upholds the dignity of God and of people. His compelling vision of God working in and with others is compatible in interesting ways with other concepts within the Christian theological tradition, such as panentheism and deification. One particularly challenging but fruitful exercise in this regard is the reconciliation of open theism and universal salvation. Oord does not comment on eschatology in this book, which leaves the door wide open for a variety of views on the final state of created things. The most obvious choice would be to endorse a free will model of salvation and damnation, but I fear that this is too high a price to pray for God's goodness; as David Bentley Hart has pointed out, a God who knowingly creates a world in which the final damnation of any creature is even possible is an evil God, for morally speaking what has been risked has already been surrendered; moreover, in such a picture it would be logically possible to say that God loved all humans to the utmost, even though all humans voluntarily damned themselves. On the other hand, some Christian universalists have suggested that God may occasionally override human freedom in the interest of saving all, and on Oord's account this is too high a price for God's love. Following the lead of Hart, I would suggest that God's love has fashioned us in such a way that we are intrinsically drawn to God, who is our sole and final good; our freedom is ultimately not our ability to do wrong, which arises from deception and slavery to sin, but rather it is our ability to do right, to simply be what we are be design. That is to say, God's love naturally makes us so that we naturally seek God's love; just as God cannot not love us, we who are made in God's image cannot in the end not love God, though for some while we may deceive ourselves into thinking that we do not. So God need not know the future in precise detail to guarantee the ultimate reconciliation of all things (which I think he must do if he is good); and this inexorable return of all things to their source is not coercive on God's part, precisely because it is deeply consonant with the love-fashioned nature of created things.

Again, this is a helpful and thought-provoking read. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in providence, miracles, or open theism. I look forward to reading some of Oord's other books in the future!

Be Amazed by God's Weakness... Not by His Divine Power!



Cirque of Unclimbables, Nahanni National Park, Northwest Territories, Canda



I am not familiar with today's author, David Henson. Not his beliefs. Not his theology. However, in today's article I felt he has touched upon a subject that we have looked at before. A subject that asks how we are to imagine God's power in relationship to God's creation. A creation which appears all-powerful, and oft times, out-of-control, or unsubmitted, to God's rulership.

 

I say "all-powerful" because many of the astronomers, cosmologists, and physicists of the world become geeked-out over the depth, the wonder, the strangeness of our infinite universe (or universes!). In the eyes of a godless science it only sees unending power stretching across the vast voids of time and space. But for the Christian scientist, s/he sees the God of the bible who stands behind the universe's emptiness and amazing wonders. Who Himself had cast its beginning from the span of his hands and very heart. Who has shared Himself through a universe and creation which we sometimes tremble before in its displays of deadly power and terrible acts of random destruction.

 

Certainly we know God's creation to be out-of-control.... Are we ourselves not the essence of this statement by our heads, hearts, souls, and spirits, as we strive against one another instead of with one another? Are we not unsubmitted to the Creator God of the universe who fills our hearts with timeless wonder before the ant or sun, the rainstorm or rolling expanse of mountain, desert, and saged prairie? Before endless meadows, the violent turbulent seas, and endless icy plains of snow and tundra?

 

And yet, in the sublimity of God's holy creation He would empty Himself of His omnipotence and share this power to His handiwork... to we ourselves as even to the created realm we find ourselves... to use, work, and live within, by His allowance, will and divine submission of power. To wield His creative majesty as would please ourselves and not Himself (not that I would ascribe existential willfulness to mortal-less matter... ). For this is the essence of creative indeterminacy and human free will. To exert power at the behest of the created thing or man. To allow the wind to become a deadly storm. The water a fatal force. Or man a wicked thing.

 

More simply said, when God did create, He created at the same time the freedom that we find in ourselves and observe within our ecosystems, sun, moon, and stars. This "creaturely freedom" the bible calls "sin." For in the granting of indeterminacy to nature, and of freedom to man, God did allow for its immediate affects and causations. But, God did also immediately begin exercising His divine sovereignty (how could He not by being who He is!?!?) by implementing His plan of redemption back to all. This we have observed in the progressive evolution of the universe, and of nature, and of man. However, within this redemption is the purposefulness that is held in what can be known as the "weakness" of God.

 

And it is to this biblical expression of God that I have found today's article quite helpful. So rather than asking the wrong question of "Why isn't God all-powerful?" Or by making the incorrect statement that foolishly asserts "God isn't all-powerful!" Let us behave our theological tempers and learn to appreciate the "weakness of God" emanating pervasively throughout His creation. And to likewise discover what this means to us, most implacably. That God has granted to man the use of His power. That it is we ourselves who must bear God's divine responsibility of using our freedom aright. That it is we who bear His divine accountability. Who must seek to behave our human willfulness. To learn God's heart of grace and merciful forgiveness so that we might more ablely share some small portion of God "Power" back with one another. And to the ecosystem that we live within.

 

To me, this is the better question to ask. Questions that we should ask of ourselves. Of our responsibilities within the larger redemptive scheme of things. And to pay attention to the smaller nuances of the biblical record as pertaining to Jesus who not only was God's representative to us on this earth. But was very God Himself come to show to us God's "weakness' in the wisdom of His purposeful creation. To show to us what it meant to "empty" Himself of His divine power in submission to the flesh through Incarnation; to the powers of this world; to the cross of redemption; and to the sinful freedom of man's willfulness.

 

This then is the ultimate example bourne by God's "servitude" to the redemption of both man and cosmos. That in the re-ordering of all things according to His will, mind and heart, it is God's purposeful "weakness" that we most find God. Not by demonstrations of His creative power (not that we haven't observe this in the biblical record). Nor by His amazing feats of coercive miracle (again, something we have also observed within biblical passages). But by His willing submission of His power to redeem all. Be amazed at that... and not by God's subjective use power demonstrations for we-of-little-faith. Rest then in the sleep of Jesus, wearied upon a boat at sea, thrashed by violent waters, and know even then that our God reigns!

 

R.E. Slater

May 29, 2013

 

 

 

Sleeping Through Storms: Rethinking Theodicy, Natural Disasters and God’s Omnipotence

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidhenson/2013/05/god-doesnt-control-the-weather-theodicy/

 

David R. Henson

May 28, 2013

Comments

 

God is not all-powerful.

 

At least, not in the ways we tend to define power.

 

For us, power means that we get our way, that we can impose our will upon the world around us, that we can conform others into our images in order to achieve unity and security. In our minds, we equate power with control, sovereignty.

 

So, when the world spins out of control as it did in Oklahoma this week, and at the Boston marathon a month ago, and at Sandy Hook Elementary six months ago, we begin to wonder what happened to this all-powerful God to whom the skies and seas and nations are supposed to bow.

 

Are the heavens really declaring the majesty of God when an E-5 tornado destroys an entire town?

 

Only the most deranged and pathological of leaders suggested in the tornado’s wake that God was in control of the situation or was somehow, ultimately, responsible for the deadly twister. That includes, apparently, folk like John Piper and our own president, who seemed to imply that the tornado was a part of God’s plan. I’m sorry, but tornadoes are not part of God’s plan. Most of us can admit that without losing our faith, just like we can admit that God isn’t really calling the shots when it comes to jet streams, weather patterns and 200-mile-per-hour winds.

 

Instead of attributing the destruction to God, we tend to reassure ourselves that, in spite of it all, God is with us in the destruction, with us in the suffering, weeping with us. What we imply in this, but don’t often say, is that, deep down, we know God is not in control. And secretly, we give thanks for that. Naturally, we then ask where exactly is God in the midst of tragedy and suffering. This existential question doubles as an unconscious and fragile prayer of thanksgiving and relief. While we may feel desolation and alienation from God in the midst of great natural disasters, we also feel grateful — hopeful, even — that God isn’t orchestrating all the pain and destruction in the world. It is a relief not to be worshipping a God who sends tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, and pestilence. It is a relief not to pray to a God who indiscriminately kills children with the same heavens which declare God’s glory.

 

God is not in control of the weather. Thanks be to God, God is not in the business of controlling anything.

 

But if God isn’t in control in the midst of such destruction, then who is? Something more sinister? Maybe something more dangerous than a sinister being. Perhaps no one — and nothing — is in control. It is a scary and disorienting thought to begin to consider God isn’t our bodyguard protecting us like the divine Secret Service from the suffering and tragedy in our world.

 

We find this idea jarring because I think we misunderstand what divine power is. God doesn’t control the weather, because that isn’t the nature of God’s power. God’s power is something stranger, more paradoxical.

 

God’s power is in the giving up of power, in the act of disarming divine omnipotence in favor of covenant and relationship with creation.

 

God’s power is in the act of becoming empty (kenosis), in becoming one of us.

 

God’s power is in incarnation and immanence, not omnipotence and distant transcendence.

 

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us that when we see him, we see God. There’s a popular aphorism based on that notion, suggesting the radical nature of the Christian faith is not that Jesus is like God, but that God is like Jesus. And Jesus is in the business of emptying himself of power to the point of utter alienation and forsakenness by God. So what if God is indeed like that, like Jesus?

 

But, you might argue, there is a story in the gospels about Jesus and his power to control the weather. And it’s true. In the gospel of Mark, a terrible storm rises on the sea, threatening to swamp the disciples and the boat they are in. They are terrified, undone at the prospect of capsizing and drowning. They are baling water from the boat, struggling with wind-whipped sails, hanging on for their lives.

 

Jesus, meanwhile, is sleeping.

 

“Don’t you care that we are perishing?” they finally shout at him to wake him.

 

Jesus rebukes the wind and commands it to quiet down. “Peace! Be still,” he says, and it is a rebuke directed as much at the disciples as it is at the wind.

 

The disciples marvel at his power, asking, “Who is this, then, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

 

We are like the disciples. We want God to calm the wind and seas. We want to shout at God, “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see we are perishing? Don’t you see so many of us — children, even! — have already perished? Wake up, God! Stop sleeping when we need you most!”

 

Like the disciples, we believe the power — the divine — is in the ability to control things. We assume, like the disciples, that the miracle is in Jesus rebuking and calming the storm.

 

But if you notice, Jesus only reluctantly uses his power. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything. He wants to keep sleeping! He goes so far as to rebuke his disciples for even asking for his help. He calls them faithless. This storm-calming power isn’t the kind of power Jesus came to demonstrate. Rather, it is the exact kind of power Jesus came in order to give up, to empty himself of. It is the same power he rejects when he refuses to throw himself from the pinnacle when he is tempted in the desert, the same power he turns down when he refuses to kneel before the Adversary, that same superficial power that controls earthly things.

 

As much as we might like, this isn’t a story, I don’t think, about Jesus’ ability to control the weather. He is bothered to do it and is bothered that his disciples even asked. This is a story, rather, about how little we believe God to be with us in the midst of an overwhelming storm. It’s about how, deep down, maybe we don’t really believe that a God-with-us is actually enough. It’s about how what we really want is a God who is in control. And it is an indictment of the disciples and of us.

 

I don’t really think the miracle in this story is about Jesus calming the storm and taking control. The miracle in this story is that Jesus with the disciples in the water-logged and weatherbeaten boat, experiencing the same terrible storm, the same terrible waves, the same terrible danger.

 

And that alone should have been enough.

 

God’s power isn’t in the control of creation or of people, but in being in covenant and relationship with them. It isn’t in imposing the divine will or insisting on its own way but in sojourning with us as we fumble around and make our way in the world. God’s power is not in miraculous interventions, pre-emptive strikes in the cosmic war against suffering and evil, but in inviting us to build a kingdom out of love, peace and justice with God. God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world, but in empowering us to build something good in this world — even if that is something as small and life-changing as constructing storm shelters at every public school on the tornado-strewn plains.

 

And isn’t this true power? Instead of enforcing control and solutions onto the world, God’s power is revealed in coming alongside us, journeying with us, suffering with us, and even staying with us in the boat when the storms come.

 

The omnipotence of God isn’t about having all the power. That’s would turn God into an insecure narcissist. Rather, the omnipotence of God is in the sharing of power.