​A God Who Loves Us but
Maybe Cannot Rescue Us

at least in a manipulative way

​DEAR GOD, I decided not to believe in you. I was upset. Devastated, actually. Tired of feeling like I’m speaking into empty air. But that’s not true. I can feel you almost all the time. I was tired of being in pain. You could have rescued me if you wanted to, but you didn’t. That made me so sad. And angry. So I renounced you in my soul and turned my back. For three solid hours. Did you miss me? I’m still kind of mad. ME
​

I really like the prayer above, offered by the gifted writer, Bunmi Laditan, from Quebec. It is honest, humane, and human.

​For my part, I am not often mad at God in the way she is mad. I've never really expected God to rescue me, at least in a one-sided and manipulative way. From a very early age, thanks to the teachings of my mother and others, I thought of God as more like a powerful and kindly grandmother who misses us and loves us, than like an all-powerful engineer or a cosmic clockmaker who can manipulate circumstances. God was first and foremost a friend, a companion, who loves me and everybody, sharing in our journeys. My mother taught me that Jesus was like this, and that God was like Jesus. That was good enough for me and still is.

​Still, I can well understand people who think of God as a rescuer. And I have to admit that I sometimes pray Help to God.  When I pray to rescued, I trust that, no matter what situations we face, there are fresh possibilities for responding to the situation at hand. I pray that I may become more aware of those possibilities. I don't think God creates or controls the situations, but I do think God rescues us in this non-coercive, grandmotherly way.  Back to God the grandmother.

And when people who believe in a more coercive kind of rescue are mad at God, I don't think God is the least bit offended. God's heart is big enough to include our anger and doubts, including our anger and doubts about God. What I most appreciate about Bunmi Laditan is that she, like me, believes in a God who listens. I think this is what matters most. 

​- Jay McDaniel

Honest Prayers to a Listening God 

​A Process Appreciation
​

I have friends who do not and cannot believe in a personal God: a God who has consciousness and subjective aims, who is everywhere at once, and who feels the feelings of all people and all living beings in an empathic way. I'm talking about God as a companion to the universe: in Whitehead's words, a "fellow sufferer who understands" and who loves each and all with "a tender care that nothing be lost."

Some skeptics even think it immature to think in such terms. They think we grow out of this way of thinking into a more abstract, less personal way of understanding divinity. They like to talk about God as The Source or The Matrix, but not God as a loving Person.

Process theologians are not among them. They - we - believe in a God who listens and cares with tender care. We are influenced by Whitehead's idea, developed in Part V of Process and Reality, of the consequent nature of God: God as an inclusive Life, enfolding the universe, who feels the feeling of each and all in a loving and understanding way.

We realize that there are other ways to think of God, too. God as the power of creative transformation, God as a timeless mind who feels pure potentialities, God as the everlasting song of the universe, God as a guiding an animating energy of the universe. We know that, for some people, these others ways make more sense.  But to these we add God as Eternal Companion. See the Six Approaches to God below. 

For us, thinking about God in deeply personal ways is wise and meaningful, especially if we understand God as a deep kindness permeating the universe. Understood in this way God is the very perfection of love. Almost like a Buddhist Bodhisattva, or a cosmic Christ.

In process theology love is not simply doing things for others, it is listening to others and being affected by what is heard. We know that God does not have literal ears, but we do believe that God has feelings. A God like this can well receive and understand our prayers and then respond with fresh possibilities for healing, wholeness, and comfort, relative to the situation at hand. God is not all-powerful but God is all loving. God feels our brokenness and understands even our most honest prayers.

It helps, then, to have someone who can pray with us. Meet Bunmi Laditan. She is a writer living in Quebec, Canada by way of northern California. You will see from her prayer above that she may well believe God is all-powerful: "You could have rescued me if you want to." In this she may part ways with process theology. But that doesn't really matter. It's the spirit of her prayers that counts. She would be the first to say that she is in process: "not finished, still imperfect, but knowing that she is not alone, and inviting others to recognize the same." Her trust is not in God the master controller but in God the deep listener. She is, to my mind, a process theologian.

​- Jay McDaniel

Bunmi Laditan's Website

​Sample of Prayers from
Dear God: Honest Prayers to a God Who Listens
​

DEAR GOD, I decided not to believe in you. I was upset. Devastated, actually. Tired of feeling like I’m speaking into empty air. But that’s not true. I can feel you almost all the time. I was tired of being in pain. You could have rescued me if you wanted to, but you didn’t. That made me so sad. And angry. So I renounced you in my soul and turned my back. For three solid hours. Did you miss me? I’m still kind of mad. ME

DEAR GOD, This broken, bloody world, my broken, bloody life. Is this your masterpiece? Are our tears and bones your mediums? How can I pretend you care about me in a world where innocents suffer? How can I pretend to matter? You don’t know how badly I crave your attention, or maybe you do. I hate it here. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, I asked for forgiveness today. Please help me to be harmless. Soften my broken parts so they don’t cut those around me. The closest ones are the most vulnerable. Make me a dove. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, I want to be a better person, but sometimes the past feels more real than the present or even the future. How do I move on from who I’ve been to who I want to be? I hope heaven is nice today. It sucks down here, as usual. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, I imagine your grace to be like an “it’s okay” cloud of forgiveness. I don’t do anything perfectly, but the grace says, “It’s okay,” and knows I’m trying. I really am trying. I know I mess up a lot and blame you for my mistakes, but I’m trying to grow. I find it hard to believe you can love someone like me. I haven’t killed anyone—yet (joke), but I don’t keep my promises to you. I forget what you tell me, and it’s obvious I don’t fully trust you. Maybe if you weren’t so invisible, this would be easier. Have you thought of not being invisible? I’d love to hold your hand. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, I’ve tasted the sweet, vanilla-scented perfume of your presence. One day I’ll be enveloped in the sweet mist of you. My home. Until then, stay close. Don’t leave me or blink. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a tendency to get into trouble. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, I know your children, not by their declarations of faith, memorization of Scripture, or the size or shape of their impressive buildings, but by their love. Love is the fingerprint that binds us. It’s the undeniable scent of you that follows yours. It sparkles in gentle eyes. It turns strangers into my family. Your love transforms anger into still lakes and pain into doves. Your love sustains and is generous. Your love is the most beautiful treasure I’ve ever known. I’d know it anywhere. Love, ME

Laditan, Bunmi. Dear God . Zondervan. Kindle Edition. 

​Sample of Prayers from Help me, God, I'm a Parent
​

DEAR GOD, I still wake up to make sure everyone’s breathing. I have no idea how You manage with billions of us. It’s a good thing You don’t sleep because the amount of coffee You’d need would be insane. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13–14

And when a child isn’t like the others? When a doctor gives a diagnosis with a label, what then? Are they still fearfully and wonderfully made? I already know the answer to this. Because while in this life, bodies are born without parts that make life possible, children get sick, their spirits land but for a small while. Others struggle with friends and in school because their thoughts are formed differently than their peers’. And others need medication to function in the way that would serve them best. They are still all perfect. Their souls are still perfect. Even if they cannot do so here, there exists a place where they will one day live, run, and play in perfect wholeness and with perfect peace. All of Your children are fearfully and wonderfully made. Every last one of them. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, Give me victory in my own battles so they don’t become theirs. Show me where I’m wrong, what I’m missing, and where I need to retrace my steps and cut down generational trees that shouldn’t have been left standing. Prune me thoroughly so that all I give to them are treasures. Let me be a higher place for them to start their journey. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, I look back and all I can see are the mistakes. So many of them. Too many for them to be okay, right? God, what have I done to Your masterpiece? My prayer today is that You forgive me for all the ways I got it wrong and count it not against them. Heal them of any wound I’ve inflicted, any word I shouldn’t have said, any decision that was the wrong one, any bad seed I planted. Pull it up. Rain down grace. Forgive my mistakes in and around their lives. Show me how to do better. Help me to love like You, trust like You, and parent like You. Be with me in the trenches today and every day. Love, ME

DEAR GOD, You taught me, in the tender way You do, that it is impossible to parent from a place of wholeness until we have forgiven our own parents. Whether their crime was simply being human, or something more egregious, forgiveness must take place because it’s in the space of unforgiveness that we unconsciously become that which marked us. You taught me that forgiveness doesn’t mean it didn’t happen; it doesn’t mean it was okay; it means I’m letting it go. I’m letting it go over and over, no matter how many times it takes, until peace replaces unwanted songs on repeat.

DEAR GOD, Everyone talks about the first word and first step, but no one talks about the first time we have to let go. No one talks about the gut-wrenching feeling that they might go in the wrong direction and they’re too old to grab by the overalls and lift into our arms away from the fire. I don’t have as much control as I used to, and it scares me. But You hold the hearts of kings in Your hand,* so surely You can hold my child. I stay up at night and worry until I feel You reminding me who directs the wind, and I begin to pray. Help them. Protect them. Shield them . . . I know You won’t take every blow, but let no arrow so pierce their hearts that it scars them forever. Send angels, all of the angels, to knock the drug, drink, or tool of destruction from their hands. Whisper words of love when all they can hear are echoes in the dark. Be God for them because I’ve realized that despite seeming to be all-powerful during the toddler years, I am not. I’m not You. You have counted every hair on their heads.** Their fingerprints are Your design. Be with them today and every day; long after my breath is a memory, be with them. Love, ME


Laditan, Bunmi. Help Me, God, I'm a Parent, Zondervan. Kindle Edition.