April 27, 2010
Born With a Silver Spoon
Every once in a while I’ll run in to someone who seems to get much more than they deserve. Maybe they don’t pay a penalty for their actions or they just seem to stumble into good fortune. And then there are those who are born first or into a favored gene pool with a linage of royalty. We all understand Paul’s analogy between God (the Potter) and man (the pot) when he says, “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” I’m not sure that I’ve ever said ‘why did you make me like this?’, but I’ve certainly said ‘why did you make him like that?’ (Romans 9:20b NIV)
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Gail;
-----“Why?” is a useful question when it is confined to its place. But its place is small because the ways of God and the reasons for them are vastly beyond the comprehension of man, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor.” (Rom 11:34) “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa 55:8) The Lord has made everything for its purpose, and His purposes will not be defeated. This is an efficient answer fencing the question from useless escapade.
-----God has named every star. He knows the number of every hair on your head, and on the heads of everyone who has ever lived or will ever live. He knows the present position of every atom of all molecules in existence. And contrary to the belief of sub-atomic physicists, He knows the present position of every electron orbiting each nucleus of all those atoms. He made the neutrinos and gluons and ordered the fleeting lives of the pions and muons to meet their specific purposes in the formulae of matter that makes everything from the simple sand to the complex proteins and DNA of innumerable cells which take their specific place in millions of different species. If the motions of uncountable stars, each one being itself universes of minute particles, behave according to His prescribed strategies, then the behavior of a few handfuls of people on a tiny dirtball within it all certainly will not escape His purposes either.
-----Surveying as much as we can know about what God made, the Deist and the Calvinist can share the same thought. If God wound up the world like a clock, then it ticks on with every cog of its intricate gears meshing precisely to achieve His intended effects. Yet every choice of every heart within it can be made totally by free will without upsetting the culmination of all His intentions. It is just part of what makes Him God.
-----So some have a lot and some have not. Every soul has its place whether in position or by measure. God gives wealth to individuals and to nations as He also does poverty. He gives each by either happenstance or opportunity. Some stumble into wealth, some into poverty. Some swing from opportunity to opportunity, living well ordered lives and acquiring what they have by discipline. Others miss every opportunity that comes their way by living in whimsical helter-skelter. But everyone is a cog engaged in God’s specific purposes.
-----We can not deny that God’s blessings are for our enjoyment. (Eccl 5:19) Nor should we deny they are for charity. (I John 3:17) In the whole measure of life, our possessions (or the lack thereof) test our souls as much as do the possessions of others. For we can view those more prosperous than us by envy of them or by praise to God for them. Or it can be either by greed or sympathy that we view those less prosperous. The why of wealth or poverty is a moot point. The only thing deserved about either one is the character we acquire (or lose) by our attitude towards them both.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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