How active is your God?
I was in the car with a young driver recently when they reached for their phone. This led to a sermon (sorry, conversation) by me on the dangers of touching a phone while driving.
A few moments later a young driver veered out from a side street right in front of us, not noticing we were there, and guess what? She was on her phone! My instant (half serious) response was to say, “See, that was a sign from God about how dangerous it is to touch your phone while driving!” My young driver said, God doesn’t work that way; he is not that involved in our lives.”
Well, is he? How active is your God in your daily life?
A few years ago, I read that excellent book by Paul E. Miller called A Praying Life. Early in the book he writes, “Many Christians haven’t stopped believing in God; we have just become functional deists, living with God at a distance”. I have been pondering those words ever since. Is that true of me? Is that how I live? I’m certain that this is God’s world; that he made it, rules it, has come in Jesus to save it and will come again to judge and renew it. He is clearly involved in the big things. But for me, is it just a matter of getting on and doing the best I can living as a functional deist?
Honestly, I think the answer is often “Yes”. I am so easily pulled into the secular thinking and practices of those around me; thinking it’s all about me and what I’m doing. How about you? Do you get pulled into this way of living too, where God seems distant and you just get on with things, living as a... well, functional deist?
The Bible reminds us that God is active in our world and lives
This is why I need to be in my Bible each day, and reading good Christian books that challenge my creeping, latent, deism. When I go to the Bible, I’m reminded that God is active in my world and life. I don’t go there because it’s my duty but because I need to. Here, I am reminded that God is not distant but present and active. For example:
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me (Psalm 23:4).
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matt 28:20).
… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10).
For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Phil 2:13).
See, in the Bible, I find that God is not distant. Rather, he is with me and constantly at work in my life and the world around me (even providing lessons about using phones while driving).
Good books help me, too. I recently found this great quote from John Calvin in a book by Nancy Guthrie called Be Still My Soul: “The Christian being most fully persuaded, that all things come to pass by the dispensation of God, and nothing happens fortuitously, will always direct his eye to him as the principle cause of events, at the same time paying due regard to the inferior causes in their own place.”
Everything that happens to you comes through the dispensation of God, the big and the small things, the easy and the hard things, but always for your good.
Finally, I read another book this year that really challenged me to see more of the activity of God in my life and in the world around me. Tim Chester’s book Enjoying God will surely be a Christmas gift this year from me to my friends. He writes, “What is the key to actually enjoying God? Christians talk a lot about having a relationship with God – but what does it actually mean to have a relationship with someone we cannot see? We talk a lot about having joy – but for many, the Christian life can feel like a dutiful slog. We talk a lot about knowing God – but it’s easier to know more about God rather than to know God more. If these things bother you then this is the book for you.”
I found it a really good book to help me be more aware of what God is doing around me and, along with Paul Miller’s book mentioned earlier, making me want to pray more to my God who is at work.
How active is God in your daily life? The Bible’s answer is that he is constantly and completely active, if only we would notice and, as Calvin says, “direct our eye to him”.
The Rev Gary O’Brien is the director of Ministry Training & Development.
