Knowing that God is there and identifying how God is at work where he is are two different things.
Knowing that God is there enables us to keep living with trust and faith in the uncertainty of life.
Thinking that we have identified how God is at work brings the urge to codify the situation in the expectation that repeating the circumstances will see a repetition of God’s work. Which puts humanity in control.
Time and again I’ve seen what are identified as ways God has worked packaged in repeatable programs in the expectation that God will work if we simply repeat the circumstances over and again.
From a longer reflection on these situations (involving some thoughts from Karl Barth) by Sam Bush at Mockingbird.
God, it seems, doesn’t leave any fingerprints. Because if God did leave fingerprints, they would instantly become blueprints for the future. No matter how well-intentioned, revivals could not be turned into a franchise of mini-revivals. If Christianity was to have any power at all, it would come from God alone. And it would frustratingly come and go as He pleases. God’s handiwork may be found all over the world, but the moment you pin it down it slips through your fingertips. God works within and somehow beyond the causations of time.
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