Surprised by God: How and Why What We Think about the Divine Matters

By Chris E. W. Green

This book explores the deep and abiding human need for contemplation, for coming to terms with and standing in awe of the nature and character of the God revealed in the Scriptures. When so much is wrong in the world, when our lives are troubled by so many threats, both real and imagined, we must learn to look to God and to see all things, including ourselves, in the light of who he is. A life of faithful contemplation begins to free us from the bad desires, false expectations, and corrupting illusions that bind us against our will and keep us from the fullness promised in the gospel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jun 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532635663

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SURPRISED BY GOD

How and Why What We Think about the Divine Matters

Chris E. W. Green

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SURPRISED BY GOD

How and Why What We Think about the Divine Matters

Copyright © 2018 Chris E. W. Green. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-3565-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-3567-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3566-3

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Green, Chris E. W., author.

Title: Surprised by God : how and why what we think about the divine matters / Chris E. W. Green.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-3565-6 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-3567-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-3566-3 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: God (Christianity) | Contemplation | Theology, Practical | Spiritual life—Christianity

Classification: BT102 G72 2018 (paperback) | BT102 (ebook)

The Banjo Lesson by Henry Ossawa (1893) (p. 68) and The Vulture and the Little Girl by Kevin Carter (1993) (p. 43) are in the public domain.

Christ and the Breadlines by Fritz Eichenberg (1953) (p. 61).

Christ Sending Forth the Disciples by David Jones (1924) (p. 62) permission given by the Trustees of the David Jones Estate.

The Christ of the Breadlines by Franz Eichenberg (1955) (p. 61) copyright: Estate of Fritz Eichenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 07/31/18

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Chapter 1: What to Do When the World Is on Fire

Chapter 2: How (Not) to Believe in God

Chapter 3: Saving Desire

Chapter 4: Practicing the Absence of God

Chapter 5: Blessed Are Those Who Do Not See

Chapter 6: God Is Not in Control

Chapter 7: Christ’s Death Lives in Us

Chapter 8: What Happens with Those God Loves

Chapter 9: Turning from God for God’s Sake

Chapter 10: Loving Obedience

Chapter 11: The Needs of God

Chapter 12: How God Becomes Human

List of Books Cited

Preface

I had a very good reason for writing this book: my wife Julie told me to do it. Of course, even with her encouragement, the work proved difficult—and not only because of the normal difficulties of writing and editing. There are always troubles sufficient for every season. So, as I was writing, my maternal grandfather and grandmother, with whom I have always been close, passed away. And I struggled with a series of illnesses. Through it all, however, the effort has been if nothing else an opening of myself to healing. It has been good for me to think and pray through these words; perhaps that is why Julie pressed me to write it.

Saying it has been good for me to write this book is another way of saying that God has surprised me, again and again. I was raised to think of God in specific terms and to expect God to acts in particular ways. Now, most if not all of those terms and ways are lost to me. But only because God always proves to be more than those concepts and expectations can handle. Even if I am not always pleased to find this happening to me, I am happy that God is beyond all I ask or think.

Finally, I need to give thanks to those who helped make this writing possible. Thanks, first, to Julie and my children: Zoë, Clive, and Emery. They were not only patient but also relentlessly encouraging in making time for me to write and praying for me to do it well. Special thanks too for all the friends who read and responded to early drafts of these chapters: Hannah Moore, Dusty Counts, Ed Gungor, Mark Aarstad, and Adam Palmer. Without their readiness to take time to read and respond to my work, I would have had a very difficult time discerning what I needed to change or leave alone, what I should add or take away. Their friendship during this time has been a grace, and I am deeply grateful for it.

Chapter One

What to Do When the World Is on Fire

There is no fear in love.

1 John 4:18

We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.

—T. S. Eliot

Christians are called to live Christ’s life in this world, embodying the fullness of his love. And that means we’re called to live fearlessly. Now, we can all find much to be afraid of; at least we could if we lived by sight and not by faith. What Teresa of Avila said of her own age is true of ours (and all other ages) as well: the world is on fire; God seems to have so few friends and so many enemies. But fear is not a Christian affection. As St John reveals, the love of God has no fear in it, and deep-seated fears suffocate our ability to live lovingly with our neighbors ( 1  John 4:18 ). The fear of judgment, in particular, keeps us from being gracefully present to those most in need. Somehow, then, we must be delivered into fearlessness by the love of God.

At birth, we are hurled into trouble. There are evils sufficient for every day and terrors sufficient for every age. We know fear from the earliest beginnings of our lives, long before we are capable of gratitude or humility, wonder or awe. In the words of Job, mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble. So how can we possibly live fearlessly? Given the state of things in this world, doesn’t even the desire to live without fear mean we are either naively selfish, concerned only with our own safety and comfort, or foolishly selfless, ready to put ourselves and our neighbors through unnecessary, meaningless suffering?

We have to find a way to move toward fearlessness—without deceiving ourselves. But how? We have to allow ourselves to be shown a reality truer than our experiences. Like Teresa, we have to look away from the world to God for the world’s sake. In times of crisis, we need to turn aside to God as Moses did, averting our gaze from all illusions of mastery and control, as well as from all specters of futility and meaninglessness, fixing our attention on the God revealed in the gospel. As Maximus Confessor reminds us, human life is lived in the shadow of death; only if we know the God who lives with us can we rightly pass through the valley of the shadow of death without dread of the evils. Fear is a way of apprehending reality, a way of receiving the world, and only by looking to God instead of the world can we be freed from it. To that end, we have to learn contemplation.

***

We are already familiar with God. At least many of us are day in and day out saturated with Christian images and sounds. We easily recognize descriptions of the divine nature (God is one, holy, good, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent). We are sure we know how to call on God, and we are quick to profess our confidence in him and desire for him. But if we want really to be freed to live the lives we’re called to live, lives authentically devoted to doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God, we have to penetrate the veil of that familiarity, pressing toward a transfiguring vision of God as he is revealed to us. It is not enough to know the divine names or to have a felt sense of the divine presence. We need to grasp—or, better, be grasped by—a vision of the divine nature and character. We have to come to know as fully as possible with life-determining force what God is really like.

But how is it possible for us, as the finite, broken creatures we are, to know what God is really like? Even our own wisdom is incomprehensible to us; how much more God’s wisdom? Thomas Aquinas can help us here. In this life, he insists, we cannot know what God in himself is like, not even by the grace of

Reviews for Surprised by God

[christian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I Learned so much from this book. Very quick read for how much you get from it.

[Shane M. Cochrane · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very unique points at times. Excellent read. Causes a lot of introspection and reevaluation of my walk with Christ and how to improve it.