Is Your God Big Enough Close Enough You Enough? – Book Review

I am excited to share my review of Is Your God Big Enough Close Enough You Enough?:  Jesus and the Three Faces of God by Paul R. Smith.

(I received this book for free to review and it may contain affiliate links)

Paul is an author, mystic, pastor, and teacher. During his nearly half-century of leadership at Broadway Church in Kansas City, the church evolved from a traditional church to the progressive, radically inclusive congregation and integral model described in this book. Smith is author of Is It Okay to Call God Mother? and Integral Christianity:  The Spirit’s Call to Evolve. You can learn more about Paul at The Jesus Path to Awakening.

Let me share five key points from this powerful book.

Infinite God: God-Beyond-Us

God is the source of all that is. God is life itself. God is pure existence or being itself. God declared to Moses “I Am.” God cannot be contained within any image, thought or concept. God is beyond us: transcendent God beyond our ability to see. Meister Eckhart stated, “I pray God to rid me of God.” Thomas Keating mentions that, “God loves to be everywhere all at once.” “Karen Armstrong reminds us, “When we’re talking about God, we’re talking about a different mode of reality.” “Being Itself is that which creates life, love, and consciousness because it holds these qualities in unmanifest form within its formlessness. Being is greater than life itself. It is the Creator and Container of life. We can rest in God’s being.”

Intimate God: God-Beside-Us

“The Intimate Face of God is our heart to heart devotional connection God. You know your God is close enough if God is like a loving mother and father to you.” We can have a personal relationship with God. We can talk to God whenever we wish. God is our mother, father, friend, personal companion and life long partner: an ever present and loving presence. St. Augustine exclaimed, “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.” John Eldredge says, “Falling in love with God is the most important thing a person can do.” Jesus referred to God as “Abba”, someone with whom he had an intimate relationship with, a tender and compassionate parent. I sit with Jesus during silent prayer (centering prayer) so I can walk with him in life!

Inner God:  God-Being-Us

“So this God beyond us and beside us also has a face that acts and speaks within us as us. This real “us” is one with God like Jesus was one with God.” I am not saying we are God. I simply say that we have divine DNA within us. Divine DNA is within all of matter. We are divinity in human form. We are both divine with a little d and human. Our humanity is an expression of our inner divinity. We are the voice, heart, hands and feet of God in the world today. I sit in silence to reconnect with the Divine within. I take silence pauses throughout the day, quietly utter the word Jesus so I can reconnect to my Inner Source. My outer world is an expression of my Inner World!

Deification

Paul makes some interesting points about divinization. What does it mean? How does it impact our actions?  What does it motivate us to share?

” One of the earliest Christian beliefs was called deification, divinization, or theosis. It meant participating in God’s divinity by coming into the union with God that Jesus demonstrated. This results in our being one with God. It means knowing God like Jesus knew God. He knew that God was not only beyond him, and close to him, but that in some way God was him. He claimed to be acting and speaking on behalf of God. Like Jesus, we are also one with God. We are God’s mind, heart, hands, and feet here on earth today. Like Jesus, we are fully human and fully divine. We are God’s children, acting as full participants in our Father-Mother’s divinity by overcoming our mistaken identity that we are separate from God. This Oneness consciousness moves us to act as divine agents in healing the Earth, overcoming poverty, eliminating hunger, stopping oppression, and ending war. It motivates us to share the Good News that we all belong to God and one another.”

Just because we participate in God’s divinity does not mean we are God. We will never be God. We can however know God like Jesus knew God. I believe that my silent prayer practice, centering prayer, is my time to sit with Jesus. I enter silent union with God. I let go of me and open my whole being, my mind, heart and body to God who is beyond my thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. I empty myself so that God has the best opportunity to pray in me. I am both fully human and fully divine with a little “d”. I call it little “d” because I am not God but I participate in God’s divinity when God prays in me. I think the idea of God being within scares some people. God is not a distant God looking down at us. God loves us and is the breath within our very breath.

I arise from my silent sit ready to act on God’s Inner nudges. These Inner nudges are uniquely designed just for me. They are the actions God wishes me to take in the world just for that very day. Here are some examples that I have noticed from my silent sits: wisdom for daily tasks at work or at home, friends or relatives that I should reconnect with for breakfast, lunch or dinner, a spontaneous outing with my wife and children after work or on the weekend, a nudge to volunteer at the local soup kitchen or discover who my employer assists in the community so I can join this effort, a sit with my wife to talk or enjoy a good movie while we drink a cup of our favorite French press coffee.

Silent prayer unites me with God. Silent prayer spurs Inner actions that I make visible in my outer world. Silent prayer teaches me that God is always present: ahead of me waiting to meet me, walking beside me and resting within me. These presences of God stay with me as I arise from my silent sit and move through my daily tasks and duties. At any moment during the day, when I feel discouraged, tired, burned out, or frustrated, a silent pause will reconnect me with the beyond me, beside me and inner presences of God.

I agree with Smith. It is Good News! We belong to God. We belong to and with others. We are all one connected community: family, friends, neighbors, city/town, work environment, country, world. We are not alone. We have each other and God!

I Am

“What happens if we just stop with “I am,” rather than finishing that statement with something we think we are or would like to be? When we just stay with the simple, “I am,” gradually or sometimes suddenly we move into something more profound. We fall into big mind, the infinite reality beyond things.”

I am more than my body, more than my thoughts, more than my experiences. I am alive. I am. That is it. God said I am who I am. Jesus said I am.

Why can’t I be just I am? I am a human being. I express my humanity when I love God, myself and others. I express my humanity when I be all that I can be and live my life to the full.

Why can’t I just enjoy being a human BEING. I don’t need to define myself as my body or my thoughts or my experiences. I just am I am and I am going to enjoy and relish this existence of BEING that God has given me.

Jesus said we need to lose ourselves to find ourselves. I choose to lose all of these other identities and just be I am.

Next Steps

I encourage you to check out Paul’s new book. It will expand and challenge how you think about God. God is much, much bigger than we realize, as close to us as an intimate, life, long partner and difficult for many to believe but actually within us at all times.

Go Further:

Is Your God Big Enough? Close Enough? You Enough?: Jesus and the Three Faces of God  by Paul R Smith

Integral Christianity: The Spirit’s Call to Evolve by Paul R Smith

Is It Okay to Call God “Mother”?: Considering the Feminine Face of God by Paul R Smith

 

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