New Lutheran Quote of the Day

He is number one.  We must take it from Him.  What He gives and says goes.  This can be rough.  We are reluctant to let Him have the say so. We would rather like to keep that or, at least, some of it.  We are prepared to fit Him in somewhere down along the line of other gods.  We don't want to tell Him straight that He is redundant.  Better to put Him on reduced time.  We might need Him some day.  That line of thinking betrays itself when things don't work out the way we want them to.  There comes a day when we need God and He doesn't come up to our specifications.  He doesn't deliver the goods, so we sack Him.  Well, not just like that.  We use some polite dodge or another, but the effect is the same.  What it boils down to is that God is not doing what number one tells Him to do.  -- Dr. Norman Nagel, Selected Sermons, p. 342.