an accident and was paralyzed from my waist down.” Like Rabbi Kushner, we are reluctant to attribute “bad” things to the intervening hand of God. The second problem with our popular use of the expression “the providence of God” is that we either unconsciously or deliberately imply that God intervenes at specific points in our lives but is largely only an interested spectator most of the time. When we think this way, even unconsciously, we reduce God’s control over our lives to a stop-and-go, in-and-out