However, as followers of Christ we do not have the option to shrink from what the Bible teaches, and in Romans 9 Paul deals with this question of the ages: “Why does [God] still find fault? For who can resist his will” (9:19)? Paul answers his question by echoing Job and undercutting humanity’s right to ask such a presumptuous question of its Crafter: “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this’” (9:20)? Humanity has no more right to object to its design than a chamber pot has a right to protest to its potter of its ill use (9:21).

In one sense, Paul does not answer his question entirely. He does not explicitly solve the problem of evil and its origin or explain explicitly how a loving, good God can both create and send to Hell. However, Paul does redirect our focus away from such paradoxes back to our response. He drives home the fact that the universe revolves around displaying God’s glories: “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (9:22-23)? Paul refocuses our attention on the glory of God and His display of patience, power, and mercy within His design. Both wrath and mercy display God’s glory. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “He is good,” but “He is not a tame lion.” A believer may find aspects of God’s sovereignty unsettling and confusing, but a humble student of Scripture will trust that God’s infinite wisdom and goodness is better than our finite imaginations. Perhaps we the finite will never fully comprehend the infinite, yet we can still respond appropriately as Paul did, worshipping and marveling even as we try to know the deep things of our God.

•But where is a view that does not focus on the church? It seems from Romans, that Paul argues for the church being something of a subset, a single branch of the tree that is Israel. It strikes me that the above views are a bit ego-centric/ecclesia-centric to how God relates to us, when Romans seems to present the church as riding only on the coat-tails of the initial promises to Adam, Noah, Moses, David, and Jeremiah. This should floor us with the grace of God, and it also profoundly simplifies things.

There is one people of God, those that believe His promise. For millenia that people was Israel, and all who would believe came to her and submitted to her law. Gentiles became Jews in order to live out their faith (ref. Rahab, Ruth et al). Ironically, many of the physical descendants of Abraham became pagan. Now, the Nations who never sought God have been formally grafted into Judah to enjoy her New Covenant. All by faith, believing Jews stand beside believing Gentiles, but all related to promises made to the true (believing) children of Abraham.

One of those types of jobs.  But this just wasn’t any group of children.  These are children living at a children’s shelter until someone can take them home—be it their parents, an aunt or uncle or a foster family.

So I was dropped into day 1 of work, ready to change the world and fix all the problems I could possibly encounter.   After 8 full hours of trying break up fights, figure out what to do with all these bored children, and put down minor insurrections about bedtime, I headed home, grumpy, tired, and defeated in my quest of world changing.  After kissing my husband goodbye at 7:30 that morning I came home at 10:30 (did I mention my hours were 2-10 at night…) I to a husband who was already asleep.  Feeling rather sorry for myself, I cried myself to sleep.

And got up the next day to the same routine.  Looking ahead at my schedule I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage to do this for 6 days straight (while still working my 2 other part-time jobs).  With some days better than others, I moved on, becoming increasingly more disillusioned.

So I did the logical thing—I called home to my mommy.  Well, actually this was not simply an emotional response.  With 20+ years of educational experience ranging from raising 4 children to running a school, my mother is a wonderful asset to any question about dealing with children.  And, she is my mother after all.

Her words were encouraging and rebuking.  She assured me that being a grown-up wasn’t easy and wasn’t always fun.  She gave me her love and pity for my difficulty.  But, she reminded me, that it isn’t all about me.  I have a job that gives me a chance to show God’s love to children who probably have never seen that before.  I have the chance to make a difference in the lives of children who are hurting.  Each day I go in, ready to be disobeyed, disrespected, yelled at, whatever.  And each night, I can go home, forgiving those who have done wrong against me.  And the next day I can go in ready to show love again.  I was no longer the victim of my job.  I am the privileged one who gets to impact other in some small way or another.

Equipped with this new perspective, I headed into work that night and was disobeyed, disrespected, and yelled at.  And now, it didn’t seem to matter so much.  I still gave consequences for wrong actions but I could see past these kid’s behaviors to see kids who needed to have God’s love shown to them.  What a refreshing change from the perspective of being the victim to that of being a giver.

This summer I found myself sitting alone in the woods and as I sat down on a log that day to eat my lunch feeling physically tired and emotionally drained. Perhaps out of the highly ingrained habits from my childhood I bowed my head over my peanut butter sandwich to “say grace.” Sensing I was alone, I decided to pray out loud for my food. But that day I didn’t just pray for my food. I talked to my Father about my exhaustion. I told my struggles in a very real way. I saw God displaying His glory that day as the sunbeams in the distance danced between the trees. I was overcome by His greatness. Of His awe-inspiring glory. I wanted to worship Him. But I was sitting alone in the woods. I tried to sing but my voice hurt and I couldn’t think of the words to any songs. I wanted to express my honor to Him with words of adoration but none came. So I sat for a moment, overcome with a desire to worship God but not knowing how. Then I looked down at my well-blessed lunch and in an act of worship I ate my sandwich, basking in the glory of my Savior and lifting my heart in worship to Him.

This is the nature of sandwich-eating worship. Worship is not simply singing with people at your church on Sundays (though this is a form of worship). Worship is so much more. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, worship is “the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.” So many Christians, myself included, try to create a separate category of actions that are “expressions of reverence.” Yet, throughout all of our different relationships, we hardly can say one set of actions convey our love or concern for others. A man does not only show his wife of his love by saying “I love you” once a day and remembering their anniversary. He can (if his motive is pure) show her his love by going to work daily to provide for her needs. He can show his love by putting his dishes in the dishwasher for her even if she never realizes. He can show her his love in a myriad of way not directly related to pedantic “expression of love.” In much the same way, we as the children of God can express our reverence for Him though our lives. Nothing is to be left outside the realm of worship other than sin, as long as the action is dedicated to expressing to God His worth.

This realization can have a profound impact of the lives of believers. There is no longer a division between the sacred and the secular. All of life is worship. All of life is God’s. Every mundane task so often forgotten becomes a “channel of adoration.” It is then we can extol His glory in our acts of sandwich-eating worship.

To have to choose between redeeming something that is flawed and being content with how it stands is a false dichotomy. Contentment consists in a realization that God is in control of any situation and will work that situation for His glory and my sanctification for His glory. Our hearts respond that therefore a situation is good. We become content, even though the situation seems obnoxious to our fleshly passions.

Redemptive passions for a fallen world should pervade our lives as followers of Christ, passions that decry our current fallen state and long to see all of creation submit to Christ its master. We should long to see God’s kingdom expand on earth in any way that He graces us to work for His glory. I firmly believe that I can be content at Bob Jones (or any other authority that wields its power poorly) while still having the Spirit lead my heart to react against its injustices and long for a day when we will submit to perfect leadership. Even leadership must strive to conform to Christ’s likeness, and one of my dearest dreams is to one day become an encouraging instrument of God for such change.

Laurelisms

1. “Tommy, are you checkin’ me out?”

2. “That sounds funny doesn’t it?”

3. “Gerry!”

4. “‘Urbs’ is such a fun word!”

5. “This tense is easy. You take the stem, you stick a “bra” on it, and then you add the normal endings… what, what’s so funny?”

6. “Maximus!”

7. “Augustine, could you please demonstrate for the class why “manus” is a very feminine word?”

And our favorite retorts…

1. “I feel MASCULINE today!” – Gerry
2. “Frankly, girls make me uncomfortable.” -Gerry
3. Drowning in an attempt to translate some Augustine, “This doesn’t make any sense at all. This guy must be a democrat.” -Gerry

Cookisms

1. Dr. Cook: “Is it wrong to turn a stone into bread? Well…”
Bzzzzzzzzzz “What is that?”
Student: “A blower.”
Dr. Cook: “Somebody go throw a stone at him.”

2. Dr. Cook: “I like this guy Erasmus, ‘When I have a little money, I buy books. When I have a little bit of money left over, I buy food.’ Yes, I agree, so keep your textbooks!”

3. Dr. Cook: “Does anyone have any questions about the project? How ’bout the answer to number 1? *intending to be sarcastic*
Student with raised hand: “It’s B, Dr. Cook”
Dr. Cook: “What? Oh, that’s not what I meant…”

4. Dr. Cook: *Completely out of nowhere* “Don’t put books on a table and put lamps on them. That’s what my wife does. They’re just not… accessible.”

4.5. The next day he put up a picture of his office on the projector, which illustrated the bookage underneath a lamp. He proceded to confess, under duress from his wife, that he had put those books there because they were too big to stand upright on his shelves. Furthermore, there was a little one on top of the big one that seemed like it would have fit on his shelf just fine. The explanation: “Well, it just didn’t look right with the one book under the lamp.”

5. Isaac was a passive kinda guy… you know living in the basement of his dad’s tent a little too long.

6. I had a point to make with that… and I totally forgot. (I think this is my favorite, I was truly impressed with his honest humility in front of two hundred students.

7. Now you girls who are really intelligent. Don’t marry an idiot… there are a lot of guys out there who are dumber than you are.

Handisms

1. “The Old Testament saints were justified through Christ too. Abraham was justified by faith because he was looking forward to Christ. In a sense it was like the longest “Hail Mary” in history…. *awkward silence followed by raucous laughter* Of course in the football sense of the phrase.”

Maríoisms

1. “I don’t understand this tradition; I give my girlfriend dying reproductive organs as a display of affection.” (Lest he be mortified, referring to flowers)