Life with God

With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God, the new book by Skye Jethani, senior editor of Leadership Journal and an ordained minister, is one of those books that’s simply profound or profoundly simple, depending on how you look at it. Jethani’s premise is that there are four common religious postures toward God that Christians uncritically assume, and that in assuming these postures we miss relationship, the one posture that matters most.

Each of the four popular postures has a different way of seeing the universe. LIFE UNDER GOD sees the world as governed by the capricious will of God. LIFE OVER GOD places immutable natural laws at the center. LIFE FROM GOD assumes the world orbits around the self and its desires. And LIFE FOR GOD sees a divine mission at the core of all things... The LIFE WITH GOD posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos: God the Father with God the Son with God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to discover that when God desired to restore his broken relationship with people, he sent his Son to dwell with us.

Most Christian ministries, Jethani argues, focus most of their energies trying to move people from one preferred posture to another -- under, over, from or for God -- rather than truly inviting people into relationship with God. He puts his finger on two culprits that lead us to embrace these postures and forfeit the opportunity to truly experience life with God:

Fear and control are the basis for all human religions. From this common beginning the paths diverge dramatically, splinter, multiply, and finally terminate in different places. But each one is an attempt to overcome suffering, fear, and death by exerting control over natural, and sometimes supernatural, forces... [The four postures] apply equally to religious paths other than Christianity. Each of these ways of relating to God is also an attempt to mitigate our fears through exerting control. But the problem... is that they all fail to deliver on this promise. The reason, simply put, is that seeking control is not the solution to the human condition but is part of the problem.

For my part, the religious posture towards which I’m prone is life for God, believing that God calls me and calls us to be doers, to be reweaving, wherever we are, a bit of the fabric of shalom that has come undone as a result of the Fall. And I do believe that to be true. But if taken exclusively it costs us something. Whatever the emphasis, it seems to me that life for God is particularly pervasive within church circles, and is all the more insidious because it’s dressed up as godliness when it's really little more than busyness, which is hardly a virtue.

So I’m grateful for this book, for shining the light on our unexamined postures. I think that Christians of all stripes will find themselves in these pages, recognizing the posture(s) to which they’re prone. As for me, I’m reminded that yes we’re called to be doers, but first, we’re invited to be with, trusting that with God in control we have nothing to fear.

“Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in all the earth!” (Ps 46:10)

See Jethani's 9-minute talk called "Inoculating a Generation" at Q Ideas, in which he articulates the key concepts of the book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”