It’s not fair!

We’ve all said that at one time or another, but Paul tells us to think again.

^20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.

Hosea put it well:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
    I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
    they’re calling you “God’s living children.”

Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
    and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
    salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
    Arithmetic is not his focus.

Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God had not provided us
a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.

Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around. But the stone is me!
If you’re looking for me, you’ll find me on the way,
not in the way.

Romans 9:19-33, MSG

IS GOD UNFAIR?	GOD	HUMANKIND
	What is His role as creator?	Do we think we are god?
	What is God’s purpose for His creation?	Does God know my purpose?
IF GOD’S IN CHARGE, WHY BLAME ME?	Has God hidden himself from me?	Do I want to be “like God” or to “BE God?”

Once again, listen for God as you read these verses. Who is God to you? Do you depend on Him or step in and take over? Do you trust Him?

Our pictures will just reflect a tiny part of who God is and our relationship with Him.

Join me tomorrow for my reflections, and please feel free to share.