The God Who Refuses Our Categories

Trust Beyond the Need for Control

We live in a world that prizes clarity, certainty, and control. We sort our lives into categories—political, psychological, theological—hoping they will steady us when life feels uncertain. Even faith can become something we try to manage: a set of beliefs that align with our views, soothe our wounds, or provide clear answers.

The God Who Refuses Our Categories: Trust Beyond the Need for Control invites readers to encounter a different God—the living God of Scripture who consistently resists being boxed in by human expectations. Through reflection, Scripture, prayer, and lived experience, this book explores a God who is beyond politics, beyond therapeutic reduction, beyond rigid certainty, and beyond the idols we create when mystery feels unsafe.

Moving from cultural pressures to deeply personal places, the study examines why idols feel safer than trust, how faith can drift into control, and why God’s refusal to be managed is not a rejection, but an act of love. The Cross stands as God’s final refusal of our expectations, while the Resurrection becomes God’s surprising “Yes”—not a neat resolution, but the promise of new life carried through suffering.

Written in a gentle, pastoral voice shaped by decades of ministry, prison outreach, loss, and healing, this book does not argue readers into faith. It walks with them. At its heart is a simple lived prayer—Here I am, as I am / Where I am, when I am / In Your presence, Lord—offered as a rule of life for those learning to trust when answers do not come.

This is a book for readers who are tired of easy certainty, wary of ideological faith, and quietly longing for a deeper, steadier trust. It does not promise control. It offers companionship with a God who will not let us go.