As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God

by Eugene H. Peterson

The next thing must surely have taken them by surprise: a volcanic eruption of divine wrath. God exploded in anger. In Scripture, God’s anger is always evidence of God’s concern, his involvement, his commitment to his people. God is not indifferent to us, not unconcerned. God is not impersonally, unemotionally cold to us. He created us, saved us, has plans for us. A vast, beautiful, and complex creation is provided, a world in which we can live to the glory of God. A painfully achieved, deeply experienced redemption is enacted so we can experience the love of God. And then in a moment of boredom, some of us turn our backs on all this and say to someone or other, “Make us gods…entertain us…pamper us…amuse us…give us some supernatural gewgaw that we can play with.” We abandon the awesome silence of worship and fill the air with third-rate jingles. We get tired of participating in the strenuous but invigorating life of freedom and faith, and we regress to the old slave religion that reduces God to a decoration or amulet.