Most of the big God questions do not show up in philosophy books. They show up at hospital bedsides at 3 a.m., at kitchen tables covered in bills, and in the ache of protest lines when your feet hurt and nothing seems to change. This first core conviction of ours is pretty simple to say and slow to trust:
God is open, relational, and love-first.
God meets us in real time. Love does not force.
The future is not locked.
God keeps leaning us toward healing, not retribution.
Let’s unpack what that means and why it matters for regular, exhausted humans like us.
What we mean by “open and relational”
When people hear “God,” many of us still picture a distant CEO in the sky, signing off on everything that happens.
Open and relational theology paints a very different picture. “Relational” means God is not a cold & fixed idea but a living presence who genuinely interacts with creation. In scripture God:
- grieves (Genesis 6:6)
- rejoices and sings over people (Zephaniah 3:17)
- changes course in response to prayer and repentance (Jonah 3:10)
“Open” means the future is not a prewritten script. God knows every possible path, like a vast map, but the actual road is walked in partnership with us. God’s knowledge is complete, but it is not a list of fixed events; it is the full set of possibilities plus a love that keeps working with whatever we choose. Paul hints at this dynamic when he says we are “co-workers with God” (1 Corinthians 3:9). Co-workers are not puppets. They are partners.
So when we say “God is open, relational, and love-first,” we are saying:
- God is personally involved, not emotionally distant
- Our choices have real dignity and consequence
- Love is God’s deepest and truest kind of power
God in real time: bedside, table, protest line
Where is God when the scan is bad, the text message shatters your world, or the news cycle just grinds you down? If God’s main job were “control,” then suffering would always be a kind of riddle:
“Why didn’t God stop this?”
But if God’s power is love-first rather than control-first, we look for God differently.
- At a hospital bedside, God is not the one flipping the cancer switch on or off. God is the presence at the edge of the bed, closer than breath, holding the terror and the pain with us. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
- At a cluttered kitchen table, God is not the one raising interest rates to teach you a lesson. God is there in the small courage it takes to ask for help, to open another spreadsheet, to tell the truth to your partner.
- On the protest line, God is not the one orchestrating injustice so “it will all work out.” God is in the chants for justice, in the water passed down the line, in the holy refusal to accept that some people are disposable. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these… you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
The Word becomes flesh and “pitches a tent” in our neighborhood (John 1:14). That is not a one-time event in Bethlehem. That is God’s ongoing habit. God’s love is not an off-site management strategy. It is a with-us, right-here, right-now companionship.
Love that never forces
If you grew up around harsh versions of Christianity, you might have heard some version of:
“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Also God will torture you forever if you don’t say yes the right way.”
That kind of sentence does damage to the soul.
In the open and relational view, love and coercion are opposites.
Love can be strong, insistent, stubborn, even fiery. But it does not override your personhood.
Paul’s famous description of love says it “does not insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:5). When Jesus stands at the door and knocks, he does not kick it down (Revelation 3:20). He invites.
So we can say:
- God calls, nudges, and persuades
- God does not dominate, override, or violate
Some theologians use a word like “amipotent” (love-power) rather than “omnipotent” (all-power) to describe this. The point is not that God is weak. The point is that God refuses to use the kind of power that crushes relationships. If you have survived abuse or a controlling religion, this matters. God is not another abuser in the sky.
God’s love always honors consent, agency, and process.
A future that is genuinely open
If the future were already locked in, then nothing we do would actually change anything. It might feel like it does, but behind the curtain, everything would already be settled.
Scripture gives us a different picture.
God sends the prophet Jonah to Nineveh with a warning, and when the people change, God changes what happens (Jonah 3:4-10). In Jeremiah 18, God describes Israel like soft clay on a potter’s wheel that can still be reshaped, not like a finished, fired pot.
These stories only make sense if:
- God knows every possible outcome
- God cares deeply which one unfolds
- Our responses truly matter
When Jesus prays in Gethsemane, “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), he is not reading from a fixed script. He is choosing trust moment by moment, and that choice ripples through history.
In an open future:
- Your “yes” to healing matters
- Your “no” to injustice matters
- Your tiny, faltering prayers matter, even when nothing seems to move
God does not guarantee that every choice will be safe or painless. But God receives each choice and weaves it into the ongoing story, again and again, toward life.
Not retribution, but restoration again and again
If God’s deepest power is love-first, then God’s deepest goal is healing, not payback.
Retribution says: “You did this. You deserve that. The end.”
Restoration says: “You did this. It harmed you and others. Let’s face it honestly and then work toward repair.”
Throughout scripture, divine judgment is often described in restorative terms:
- God’s fire tests and purifies, rather than simply destroys (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)
- God’s aim is to “reconcile to himself all things” through Christ (Colossians 1:19-20)
- At the end of the story, God’s declaration is “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5)
Different Christian traditions debate how far and how long this restoration stretches. Our conviction leans toward this:
God does not give up on any beloved creature. God’s justice is severe toward harm but always in service of ultimate healing.
That does not erase consequences. It reframes them.
Consequences become part of how reality tells the truth and invites us back toward love.
So what difference does this make on a Tuesday?
It is one thing to nod along theologically. It is another to live differently in rush-hour traffic, in group chats, and in therapy.
Here are a few quiet shifts this first conviction invites:
- We stop blaming God for harm.
When tragedy strikes, we do not say “God did this to teach me something.” Instead we say: “This is real, and it is awful. God is with me inside it, working toward life.” That alone can loosen the grip of spiritual shame. - We treat our choices as meaningful.
If the future is genuinely open, then apologizing, voting, showing up to the meeting, texting the friend, finding a therapist, resting, marching, giving, forgiving: all of these become ways we participate in God’s healing work. - We practice non-coercive love ourselves.
Parenting, partnering, pastoring, organizing: all of these areas are places where it is tempting to control. If God’s love does not force, ours should move in that direction too: clear, honest, persistent, but non-violent. - We make space for grief without needing a quick lesson.
In an open and relational frame, you are not required to find “the reason” for everything. Some things are simply terrible. God is not the author of those events; God is the companion and co-sufferer within them.
Practice:
At the end of the day, take five slow breaths and review one moment that was painful and one moment that was good. In each, imagine Christ sitting beside you, not explaining, not fixing, just sharing your exact feelings. Let your body notice what it is like not to be alone there.
Questions for reflection
- When you picture God “meeting you in real time,” what scene from your own life comes to mind first? What does God look like there?
- How has the idea of a controlling, script-writing God shaped the way you respond to your own pain? What shifts if God’s power is love-first instead?
- Where in your story do you see evidence that your choices have truly mattered, for good or for harm? How might God be inviting you to participate in restoration now?
- Have you experienced love that honored your agency and consent? What did it feel like in your body? How might that be a small icon of the way God loves?
- When you think about justice, do you lean more toward payback or repair? What stories from Jesus’ life (for example, Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10) challenge or deepen your instinct?
You might want to journal through one question each day this week, or talk about them with a trusted friend or therapist who will hold your story gently.
A short prayer
Holy Love,
you are not far away and fixed.
You are here, in this exact moment of my life.
Where I am hurting, sit with me.
Where I am numb, breathe for me.
Where I am stubborn, keep nudging me toward life.
Teach me the kind of love that does not force
but still refuses to give up.
Take my choices, my mistakes, my tiny acts of courage,
and weave them into something healing
for me, for my neighbors, and for the world you so deeply love.
Amen.
If all of this feels new, you do not have to swallow it in one bite. Let one line stay with you today, maybe this one:
God is not waiting at the finish line.
God is walking with you, step by step, in real time.