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When God Becomes Small
Deep inside each one of us is a deep empty space. We work and strive with great energy toward ideals and objectives that, in the quiet of the night, when we are alone with our thoughts, we know will never fill that space. This human chafing point is universal and although we become quite accomplished at hiding it, it never leaves us. It is always there, under the surface, this struggle to figure out who we are supposed to be as humans, with each other and with God.
It is this most basic human struggle that author Phil Needham addresses in When God Becomes Small . This beautiful, profound book looks with clarity and compassion at our human misconceptions of God and of ourselves.
We seem naturally obsessed with more, bigger, and we despise what is small, or less.
We make God out to be something God is not, we misunderstand the greatness of God, and see God as gigantic, distant, remote.
At the same time, we make ourselves out to be smaller than we are, and our lives less significant than they are. We let ourselves off the hook, so that we can downgrade our self-expectations.
But Phil Needham does not leave us there. As the book unfolds we see how God saves us from these misconceptions. And we learn how we might follow God to the freedom of becoming small .
It is this most basic human struggle that author Phil Needham addresses in When God Becomes Small . This beautiful, profound book looks with clarity and compassion at our human misconceptions of God and of ourselves.
We seem naturally obsessed with more, bigger, and we despise what is small, or less.
We make God out to be something God is not, we misunderstand the greatness of God, and see God as gigantic, distant, remote.
At the same time, we make ourselves out to be smaller than we are, and our lives less significant than they are. We let ourselves off the hook, so that we can downgrade our self-expectations.
But Phil Needham does not leave us there. As the book unfolds we see how God saves us from these misconceptions. And we learn how we might follow God to the freedom of becoming small .
168 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2014
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18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 10, 2015
Deep inside each one of us is a deep empty space. We work and strive with great energy toward ideals and objectives that, in the quiet of the night, when we are alone with our thoughts, we know will never fill that space. This human "chafing point" is universal and although we become quite accomplished at hiding it, it never leaves us. It is always there, under the surface, this struggle to figure out who we are supposed to be as humans, with each other and with God. It is this most basic human struggle that author Phil Needham addresses in "When God Becomes Small." This beautiful, profound book looks with clarity and compassion at our human misconceptions of God and of ourselves. We seem naturally obsessed with more, bigger, and we despise what is small, or less.
We make God out to be something God is not, we misunderstand the greatness of God, and see God as gigantic, distant, remote.
At the same time, we make ourselves out to be smaller than we are, and our lives less significant than they are. We let ourselves off the hook, so that we can downgrade our self-expectations.
But Phil Needham does not leave us there. As the book unfolds we see how God saves us from these misconceptions. And we learn how we might follow God to the freedom of "becoming small."
--My thoughts. I was hoping this book wasn't going to be so dull and a bit more personable. Sigh. It was. What is God to him? Please tell me. I wanted to know! I don't know to know what his research found him, I could do that. Tell me what he means to YOU. That subject has been done and done and done again.
To the person that is having trouble believing, where would they find Him? Tell them, where is He in YOUR life? Show them! Come on, we can do better than this!
We make God out to be something God is not, we misunderstand the greatness of God, and see God as gigantic, distant, remote.
At the same time, we make ourselves out to be smaller than we are, and our lives less significant than they are. We let ourselves off the hook, so that we can downgrade our self-expectations.
But Phil Needham does not leave us there. As the book unfolds we see how God saves us from these misconceptions. And we learn how we might follow God to the freedom of "becoming small."
--My thoughts. I was hoping this book wasn't going to be so dull and a bit more personable. Sigh. It was. What is God to him? Please tell me. I wanted to know! I don't know to know what his research found him, I could do that. Tell me what he means to YOU. That subject has been done and done and done again.
To the person that is having trouble believing, where would they find Him? Tell them, where is He in YOUR life? Show them! Come on, we can do better than this!
June 11, 2020
I wanted to like this book. If a book doesn’t grab my attention then I don’t usually finish them.. The whole process of reading this book took me eight months. I read a little and then forgot about it completely and when I did remember months later, I read a little and put it back down until I finally determined to finish it. So all that to say, nothing grabbed my attention to make me want to read this book.
There were a few things he stated that I underlined but I felt like it was more that I understood that point more than there was an answer to my questions, doubts, and my lack of faith.. I waited for the answers but didn’t really get any. To me, it’s just like any other book that talks about God; I didn’t feel anything new was said or even said in a way to really drive the point home. The main point is seeing God in the small details. But if I was seeing God in the small details and realized his love and care then I would be “heading the right direction”; the problem is that I don’t, this didn’t help that and I was hoping to see more of how that happens rather than someone telling me again God is God, he cares, he loves us, and it’s about Jesus. I know that.
I wouldn’t say it isn’t a helpful book, you never know who needs what, and I did feel like he was speaking about a topic that means a lot to him so that makes it at least relevant. This book just wasn’t what I was looking for and it clearly wasn’t something I really enjoyed reading.
There were a few things he stated that I underlined but I felt like it was more that I understood that point more than there was an answer to my questions, doubts, and my lack of faith.. I waited for the answers but didn’t really get any. To me, it’s just like any other book that talks about God; I didn’t feel anything new was said or even said in a way to really drive the point home. The main point is seeing God in the small details. But if I was seeing God in the small details and realized his love and care then I would be “heading the right direction”; the problem is that I don’t, this didn’t help that and I was hoping to see more of how that happens rather than someone telling me again God is God, he cares, he loves us, and it’s about Jesus. I know that.
I wouldn’t say it isn’t a helpful book, you never know who needs what, and I did feel like he was speaking about a topic that means a lot to him so that makes it at least relevant. This book just wasn’t what I was looking for and it clearly wasn’t something I really enjoyed reading.
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August 3, 2020amazing book for anyone with any sort of soul searching background! must must read!
September 28, 2014
The book title reminds me of Martin Luther's "the God who became small―small enough to die: for us." The gorgeous sky/ocean cover photo that wraps around front to back reminds me of "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean" in Mark Sanders' and Tia Sillers' song "I Hope You Dance."
Either due to my being slow picking up his general style, or to author Phil Needham's getting into his ideas slowly, at first I found When God Becomes Small somewhat disappointing, but I don't know what I expected to find. However, as soon as I got beyond the first chapter, I realized we need to keep rehearing and relearning this message of God's presence in and passion for the minutiae of everyday, (to cite a famous phrase) God's "preferential option" for powerless people, of God's choosing to transform society and world amidst barely noticed events. Among those barely noticed events, the birth of a baby in a Bethlehem stable. Our central Christian hermeneutic is God's incarnation, enfleshment, in the "smallness" of a human creature. Throughout the pages of this book, Needham reminds us of ways to live, appreciate, and celebrate daily life in all the micro stuff that surrounds us and encounters us. I minored in urban studies, but hadn't recently brought together the fact that a mega-metropolis like London is so huge because of all the neighborhoods that built connections (originally mainly roads for traveling) to each other. Phil Needham understands human obsession with super-sizing everything so well!
The author points out how our frequent preoccupation with a remote, unapproachable, immutable, far away Divinity is far more Greek than it is Hebrew. The God of Hebrew scripture, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God who most fully self-reveals in the Aramaic Jew Jesus Christ, is a God near at hand, close by, a God who meets us in the everyday moment, in the most vulnerable among us. God who becomes part of our own stories--slow down; look around! However, having observed too many tasks done poorly within church building walls and at church-sponsored events, I love Phil's caution that real life lived out in small encounters does not mean sloppy, badly performed, embarrassingly inept. The prose flows gracefully through about 150 pages, so this would be an excellent book to loan to or maybe gift to that person you know who carries negative and inaccurate stereotypes about the church and about Christianity.
Phil Needham includes quotes and examples from some well-known and slightly lesser-known people; the bibliography at the end is a very manageable Works Cited.
Either due to my being slow picking up his general style, or to author Phil Needham's getting into his ideas slowly, at first I found When God Becomes Small somewhat disappointing, but I don't know what I expected to find. However, as soon as I got beyond the first chapter, I realized we need to keep rehearing and relearning this message of God's presence in and passion for the minutiae of everyday, (to cite a famous phrase) God's "preferential option" for powerless people, of God's choosing to transform society and world amidst barely noticed events. Among those barely noticed events, the birth of a baby in a Bethlehem stable. Our central Christian hermeneutic is God's incarnation, enfleshment, in the "smallness" of a human creature. Throughout the pages of this book, Needham reminds us of ways to live, appreciate, and celebrate daily life in all the micro stuff that surrounds us and encounters us. I minored in urban studies, but hadn't recently brought together the fact that a mega-metropolis like London is so huge because of all the neighborhoods that built connections (originally mainly roads for traveling) to each other. Phil Needham understands human obsession with super-sizing everything so well!
The author points out how our frequent preoccupation with a remote, unapproachable, immutable, far away Divinity is far more Greek than it is Hebrew. The God of Hebrew scripture, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God who most fully self-reveals in the Aramaic Jew Jesus Christ, is a God near at hand, close by, a God who meets us in the everyday moment, in the most vulnerable among us. God who becomes part of our own stories--slow down; look around! However, having observed too many tasks done poorly within church building walls and at church-sponsored events, I love Phil's caution that real life lived out in small encounters does not mean sloppy, badly performed, embarrassingly inept. The prose flows gracefully through about 150 pages, so this would be an excellent book to loan to or maybe gift to that person you know who carries negative and inaccurate stereotypes about the church and about Christianity.
Phil Needham includes quotes and examples from some well-known and slightly lesser-known people; the bibliography at the end is a very manageable Works Cited.
February 22, 2015
It was an OK book. A bit dry.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews