Free What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell Page B

exactly as he does. And yet he had no problem looking me in the eyes and challenging me and confronting me and pointing out when I was way, way off base. He was kind and humble and open, and yet firm and rock solid and unshakable.
    All at the same time.
    He was a man of faith,
    deeply grounded in his convictions,
    and yet those firm convictions didn’t close him down or harden him or make him brittle and closed-minded; they had the exact opposite effect. They seemed to make him more flexible and limber and engaging.
    Like a tree,
    planted near water,
    with deep roots.
    A storm comes and the tree doesn’t break because it’s grounded enough to . . . bend.
    I believe that this is one of the most urgent questions people are asking at this time about the very nature of faith: Can conviction and humility coexist as the dance partners we need them to be?
    I say yes, they can. I have seen it up close, and it’s possible. It requires that we pay as much attention to how we are talking as to what we are talking about, and it requires us to leave the paradox as it is, the tension unresolved, holding our convictions with humility.
    All of which leads me to something my friend Pete wrote:
    When it comes to talking about God, that which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop talking.
    So now, with that said,
    and not said,
    on to the God who is with us.

CHAPTER 4
    WITH
    So finally, after
    open
    and
    Both,
    we get to
    With
    and
    For
    and
    Ahead.
    I remember years ago hearing someone tell a dramatic story about something incredible that had happened in his life, and the way he summarized what had happened was “. . . and then God showed up!” It was moving to hear how thrilled he was, but I had one of those “Wait—what?” moments soon afterward. If God showed up, then prior to that, was God somewhere else? And if God was somewhere else, and then God came here for that person at that moment, why didn’t God show up for all of those other people in all of those other moments who could have used some showing up?
    I’ve encountered this conception of God countless times over the years, a perspective that isn’t as much about who God is as where God is. I’ve heard people pray and ask God to be with them; I’ve heard songs inviting God to come near; I’ve heard a good event described as a God thing —all of these undergirded by the subtle yet powerful belief that God is somewhere else and then comes here to this world from time to time to do God sorts of things.
    The problem with this as one’s only conception of God is that it raises endless questions about when and where and why God chooses to act.
    Or not act.
    I don’t know why the Holocaust happened or why that young girl was abducted or why that uncle got a brain tumor. And neither do you. None of us does. And anybody who can tell you why God decided to come here and act in one instance but not another should not be trusted. Lots of people were given only this particular conception of God at some point in their lives and they’re still living with it: that God is somewhere else and may or may not come here from time to time to do God sorts of things.
    Do you see what this leads to?
    This conception of God can easily lead people to the notion that life, the world, existence, etc. is perfectly capable of going on without that God. That God becomes, in essence, optional .
    That God may or may not exist.
    Great effort, then, is often spent trying to prove that that God even exists, which can, of course, fail spectacularly.
    Â 
    There is, I believe, another way to see God, a way in which we see God with us— with us, right here, right now. This isn’t just an idea to me; this is an urgent, passionate, ecstatic invitation to wake up, to see the world as it truly is.
    I recently bought some new snorkeling gear, and as I was pulling it out of its packaging a