As the created, living on the planet formed by the hands of the Creator, out of nothing, mind you, we never, ever, have the right to have a “not in my back yard” attitude before him. The earth belongs to him. It exists for his purpose—whatever that purpose is. And we exist for his purpose, too—whatever that is.

The Journey// Focus: Exodus 9:16

But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

Psalm 24:1-2 declares, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”

Since that is the case, why do we try to limit the Almighty with our cultural sense of fairness? Who are we to tell God how he should or shouldn’t act toward the people of the earth? After all, he is the one who designed and built the earth, he placed it exactly as it should be; it is for his purpose and pleasure that he laid it out the way it is and populated it with life.

As the created, living on the planet formed by the hands of the Creator, out of nothing, mind you, we never, ever, have the right to have a “not in my back yard” attitude before him. The earth belongs to him. It exists for his purpose—whatever that purpose is. And we exist for his purpose, too—whatever that is. As the prophet Isaiah so bluntly reminds us,

Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker,
those who are nothing but potsherds
among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
‘What are you making?’
Does your work say,
‘The potter has no hands’?

God is God and we are not! We would do well to remember that—not only for ourselves, but as we interpret the current issues in our culture. The fact is, like it or not, God can raise us up for his glorious purposes, or he can cast us down for the same. Presidents, politicians, poets, celebrities and tycoons—no matter how powerful the world declares them to be, no matter how mighty they proclaim themselves to be—are still clay in the Potter’s hands.

And you? You are the Lord’s! God has raised you up to show his great power in you that his name might be proclaimed through you. And your life-mission is to spread his fame among the peoples of the earth and the principalities looking on from the unseen realm. That is your singular job as clay in the Potter’s hand: to make him famous.

“ God puts Christ’s enemies as a footstool beneath His feet, for their salvation as well as their destruction. —ORIGEN