Well, Romans 9 is going to take at least a couple of days to cover, because in my read-through I bumped into a comment by Paul that really is great for thinking about, and I am going to focus on that today, and then do the more comprehensive chapter review tomorrow.  But here is that comment from Paul that caught my attention:

21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 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, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

An idea I have heard expressed before, that is a similar thought, goes like this, “You can tell a lot about the painter by looking at the painting, but you can’t really know the painter.”  Between that idea and Paul’s comment in v21, I think we come to a fantastic idea - the idea that we can’t and won’t really ever truly understand God or all of His purposes, at least not until we meet Him.  We shouldn’t pursue God with that goal in mind.  It is fine to want to know more, and to seek more information, and to learn and to grow spiritually...those are all good things; great things.  That being said, the pursuit of that knowledge shouldn’t be the end game; not the goal.  It isn’t going to bring us satisfaction ultimately though, and that is for 2 reasons.  One, it isn’t meant to...if God wanted us to be able to understand Him, all His intentions, all His plans, He would reveal them to us.  And two, we are to pursue God’s vision for our lives and for the world by pursuing Him, and it is made clear to us in scripture that THAT is the point of the pursuit...knowing Him.

I think there is another important idea in this passage though - the idea that this is God’s world, and He can do with it what He wants.  God created it.  God can judge it.  God can end it today.  God can do whatever He wants.  And that can be an un-nerving idea, or almost a cold and unloving idea, if we separate it from what God has already done.  If we look at what we have been given to use to understand God, we have the Bible and the world around us...and it would be hard to say that God’s character has revealed anything but love for His people.  God has pursued us for as long as we’ve been on this earth, and we have basically run from Him that entire time.  Sure, God has judged the world in various ways that we don’t understand, and sometime we look at events happening around us and blame God, but we have to remember that when God had the world just the way HE wanted it, in the Garden of Eden, it was ultimately the same way WE want it...and then WE messed it up.  That’s on us.  Now, we can say that God could fix it with one little swipe of His finger, and that thousands of years of suffering wouldn’t be needed, and we can say that the method God has been using to bring us back to Himself isn’t needed...but then we are assuming we know everything there is to know...we are committing the same sin that got us kicked out of the garden in the first place!

Looking around, we can see the beauty of this world like someone can see the pot created by the potter, or the painting by the painter, and we can understand that God MUST love us...and there really isn’t any evidence to suggest that God has any other purpose for us rather than to have us know Him.