Last Night's Conversation

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We had a great conversation last night. We engaged in conversation about the ever mysterious concept of God's divine will. We spent most of our time in Romans 9,10, & 11. Romans 9:22-24 says, "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath, prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory, —even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?" What an incredibly messy and confusing passage of Scripture! But God moved Shaunna to compare this passage to Romans 2:3-5. Verse 5 says, "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." Comparing this passage with the passage from Romans 9 (discussed above) led to this thought: what if when we are born, we are born as objects of God's wrath, prepared for destruction (because we are born sinful)? Then, what if when we respond to Jesus' pursuit of us, we are transformed into objects of his mercy, prepared for glory???

Whether or not this hurricane was an act of God's wrath ojudgmentnt on a city saturated with evil is impossible to know, and possibly even dangerous water to tread (no pun intended). Regardless of whether it was or wasn't, I do believe that this disaster is, in a way, still another page in the story of God's relentless pursuit of His beloved creations that bear His very image. Oh what lengths our loving Father goes to for the sake of romance.

We had a VERY cool time to one by one go upstairs where an offering station was setup with a passage of scripture to meditate on and offer a portion of the finances that God has entrusted to us back to the relief effort of the hurricane victims (pictures on the way). More disaster relief planning to come...