Devotion #6: Who Are We to Challenge God
When watching movies or reading books, I always love it when the good guys stand up and challenge the bad guys! It is always interesting to me that this story never seems to grow old. With most stories, many of us are rooting for or wanting the good guys to finally stand up. We do not like the ways that people are treated; therefore, we desire people to stand up.
In Romans 9:19-24, we read, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But 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?’ 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? 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 - even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” However, we can read in this section of Scripture that when it comes to our standing with God, sometimes we do not agree with how He has chosen to handle it. We have been challenged in this section of Scripture. The Bible asks questions or makes statements like, “Who can resist his will?” and who are you “to answer back to God?”
It is a super interesting question to be asked from this passage. When you or I get the opportunity to be creative and are building something or creating something with clay, do we worry about what the clay or the building materials want to be? Obviously, we do not worry about these things. Well, this passage makes the same analogy for us to God, but we know that many of us question what God is doing. In our heads, we know that God is wiser and smarter than we are, but because we do not understand what God is doing, we challenge God. When we look at this world, we do not understand the suffering or the hurt. Many argue that we would not want to resist the Lord, but that is what we do when we want the good guys to stand up and push back against God.
We are often reminded that this would be considered foolish. Isaiah 45:9 reads, “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles?’” It is God who determines everything about us. Let us remember: Who are we to challenge God?