i just finished reading 'the divine commodity' by skye jethani. there are a few moments where god pushed words from this book deep into my heart. one passage that has been haunting me (in a good way) for the past two weeks reads as follows...
we have a certainty about god and his ways that leads us to replace the mystery of faith with manageable spiritual formulas... Regardless of the medium, we utter phrases like 'god always...,' 'god never...,' 'god only...,' and even 'god hates...' with flippant regularity. such absolute pronouncements should rarely be spoken by fallible humans and then only with much trepidation.
the abundance of our definitive words about god shows that we don't view him as a great mystery anymore, but as a sterile calculation without ambiguity or obscurity. and, not surprisingly, this definitive god usually conforms nicely to our personal desires and politics. the resurgence of the prosperity gospel movement is one sign of this. quoted in a time magazine article titled "does god want you to be rich?" television preacher joyce meyers says, 'who would want to get in on something where you're miserable, poor broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven? i believe god wants to give us nice things.' she has a point. who would want an uncontrollable, mysterious and holy god when you could have a genie in a bible? pg 35
mystery or math?
art or science?
beyond comprehension or completely figured out?
more on this later...
peace to you,
scott
