The Ordinary God



“Do you believe in a god who can change the course of events on earth?”

        “No,” the woman answered, “just the ordinary one.”

This was the interesting beginning to an article in Saturday's KC Star.

Here are a few clips from the article:
"As of 2012 only 13 percent of the world’s population would describe themselves as convinced atheists, according to a global survey by WIN-Gallup International. Here in the United States, only 5 percent would accept that designation.

However, religion has been growing much less important. God once was seen as commanding the entire universe and supervising all of its inhabitants — inflicting tragedies, bestowing triumphs, enforcing morality. But now, outside of some lingering loud pockets of orthodoxy, we have witnessed the arrival of a less mighty, increasingly inconsequential version of God.

God is becoming, in that woman’s sense, ordinary."
I wrote about this idea of a reduced view of sovereignty here. In that post I said:
My view is that God has a different style of management and sovereignty. When I think about the word sovereignty I see a pyramid where God has delegated sovereignty to nations, to communities, to families and finally to the individual. Both groups of peoples and people themselves exercise an incredible amount of sovereignty in the world.
I am interested in your perspective on this idea. Have your views of how God interacts with His creation changed?
Do you think this diminishes our view of Him (I do not) or do you feel that this is a theology that helps us?


9 comments:

  1. No, it does not diminish our view of Him.

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  2. Seems like He shows up to comfort, not to change trials at our whim. Ie 2 Cor 1.

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    1. I so wish you were wrong Don. :)

      I want him to take me out of trials and not help me through them.

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  3. God never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
    We are the ones who change.
    We think we can handle everything on our own, we are in control ,
    We only think about God when things get really tough and then we try to tel him what to do.
    Cloudy vision, that's for sure.

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    1. I like that Sue. We are indeed the ones who change. Hopefully our understanding of God gets a bit less cloudy as we mature and grow in Him. :)

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  4. If one believes, as I do, that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, then one believes that God is sovereign. But if one believes, as I do, that God is self-limiting in that He created man and endowed him with free will, then God is in charge, but man is positioned to mess things up. And he does. This does not mean that God does not care, or that He is remote, or that He has put everything on autopilot.

    God loves us, he woos us, and He is faithful. God’s sovereignty will ultimately be displayed to all, and those who rebel will not find a happy outcome.

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    1. Thanks for sharing vanilla. I agree with the idea that God is self-limiting with regard to how he expresses His sovereignty. It seems that his main expression of his sovereignty is through those who have been transformed by his Spirit. We are his hands to heal. Our hearts spill over with his compassion and touch those who are hurting.

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    2. Yes, Bob, we are transformed to be His hands of healing to a hurting world.

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