a quote

[The] real point is, I believe, that the salvation of human beings, though of course extremely important for those human beings, is part of a larger purpose. God is rescuing us from the shipwreck of the world, not so that we can sit back and put our feet up in his company, but so that we can be part of his plan to remake the world. We are in orbit around God and his purposes, not the other way around. - N.T. Wright, "Justification", pp 24

I love that last line. "We are in orbit around God and his purposes, not the other way around." It's so easy to fall into that mindset where God's main concern is our happiness and the flourishing of our own selfish dreams and desires. It's so easy to become upset when our plans don't, well, "go to plan," when what we want to happen doesn't end up happening. We ask ourselves, "Where was God?" Perhaps the correct question should be, "Where are we?" Quite often, by asking the former question, we are putting ourselves at the center; we are making ourselves the sun, around whom God orbits. The latter question forces us to look inwards at ourselves and outwards at the world, hopefully in a different light, perceiving--hopefully not for the first time--that God's main concern isn't us and what we want but the world and the kingdom of God.