I got up with a traditional bowl of Total with sprinkled raisins from the Amish country and a douse of soy milk. I thanked God he always provides food and life despite my hundreds of rebellions through the previous day. But an additional, different and new consuming thought flashed across my mind this morning.

Over the past number of months I have wrestled with the seemingly paradoxical balance of the spiritual and physical realm. I enjoy the worshipful wonder in the predictable order of the physical. The spiritual seems to allow this order to be tossed aside. "Redeeming Science" ¹ offered a satisfying answer. The physical world is the actual manifestation of God's Word spoken into existence. The world's physical order is in place and sustained by the commitment God has in his own power and logic. The joy in predictable order is the steadfast order and perfection of God himself. This understanding frees me to know that spiritual interactions with the physical world, that may alter physics, are still part of God's order and even in a greater way.

This morning, I realized the food I was eating was an expression of God's word spoken into being. The laws of physics that hold the protons, electrons and neutrons together and make up of Total follows the order of God's spoken word. I have food because God sustains me and holds my being together also. I want to continue developing this incredible frame of view.

But the next thought shocked and warned me into a need to see a deeper reality. As I munched and thought about the ramifications, I immediately thought of friends with painful illness and people in countries dying from a lack of provisions. How would these people view the physical order of the world? Food is not a commodity. To them, bodies that have physical order to hold them together are a harsh reality that provisions are not being met. The hourly pain, dry throat, cracked lips, sleepless nights, dreams of food, and goal reducing weakness on a physical body is a constant glaring scream that order is not in place. How is this discrepancy of order and disorder reconciled in my mind? How would I view God when my physical needs are not being met? It is easy to think of lofty ideas of theology and wonder when your needs are met, but finding wonder in God when needs are not met is a deeper reality. If wonder is still found, then a deep God is seen to be worth over life itself. He is glorified greater because he is seen as a greater prize.

After a pondering breakfast, I read the following. It is a story about a man who had everything and then lost everything:

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. ( Job1:20-22)

I believe I am in a massive time of plenty. I just pray that I would not see this time as normative and even shape my theology from it. Making a time of plenty as normal improperly shapes my view of who God is and how he interacts with me.

As usually, I think a massively bigger picture of God needs to be grasped. Much of faith is wrapped up in believing God has order to everything, even when the order, to us, seems failing. Why are there many promises and exhortations to

not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ( Matt6:25)

and

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." ( Prv3:5)

or to believe that

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will ( Eph1:11)

and learn to say

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ( Phl4:12)

Each verse is getting at a desire for order and meaning. Each is rooted in believing the promises that God has a massive order of glorifying himself. The wonder for us is inclusion! He already gave us his son, how much more will he include us? ( Rm8:32) Do we believe it? Lord I believe, just help my unbelief ( Mk9:24).