What she wanted to know is if God made the flood happen, if God could have kept that from happening, if the God of our day is as powerful as the God of Noah’s time.

I was careful not to try to answer. (Note that many scripture scholars, unlike movie producers, read the Noah story as figurative — not that there never was a flood, but rather that there are flood narratives in many ancient civilizations and ours is written, we believe, inspired by the Holy One, to teach us about sin and righteousness and saving grace).

Sunday morning I heard a reading from the Christian scriptures in which Jesus tells his followers that he will have to go to Jerusalem and suffer torture and be put to death. The disciples are, of course, horrified.

One of them, Peter, tells Jesus that this must not happen. Jesus emphatically corrects and assures Peter that somehow this has to happen. Many Christians hear this as “God’s will.” I believe, however, that what Jesus meant was that he could not stop preaching what he was preaching and that this would necessarily bring him into conflict with the authorities who would find a way to get rid of him.

This Jesus tells his followers to embrace suffering as an inevitable part of life (take up your cross) but to trust that God is there for us, and that somehow, like Jesus, we will be brought through the storm — “raised” by God, by life.

Of course, I am very good at being ambivalent. I do pray that my niece will be able to stay clean and sober forever and I do pray that refugees and immigrants will find welcome in American hearts. Even though I hedge a little about what I think God has the power to do, I believe that somehow prayers help — that they serve to bring us close to those for whom we pray and closer, too, to the God to whom we direct our prayers.

I just don’t want to blame God for awful things that happen or say to another niece that it was “God’s will” that her son died. No, it wasn’t. I believe God was there with Jimmy when he was dying and he is there with my niece and her husband while they grieve. I believe God is there in the flood waters with those who can never return to their homes and also with those who have lost loved ones. I believe God grieves with all those who grieve and that God is angry with all the hatred and violence human beings spread.

But, I don’t see God as all powerful. Is this blasphemy? Or, is it the evolution of faith in a person who believes that God is all love and everywhere longing for us to be all loving, too. A God of influence but not, perhaps, divine intervention.

I’m still praying about this.

What do you believe? How has your faith changed since you were young? How does it sustain you now?