Is Your God Big Enough Close Enough You Enough?

Is Your God Big Enough Close Enough You Enough?

That is the title of a book I read by Paul R Smith. I want to highlight what Paul refers to as the three faces of God.

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.”[1]

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.”[1] 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.”[1] 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!

Go Further

[1] 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

Healing the Divide: Recovering Christianity’s Mystic Roots by Amos Smith

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