I'll never forget the first time I stood on Polychrome Overlook in Denali National Park. Mountains towered behind me and before me across the biggest river valley I'd ever seen. The braids of water below looked like gentle trickles, but I knew only distance belied their true expanse. A warm mid-morning sun (you know the one - just warm enough to cut the air's chill) sparkled down, bathing the valley in every spectacular shade of Alaskan summer.

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And as I perched on a rock bigger than me - one of thousands scattered down the edge of the road's cliffside, I'd never felt so small. In this place, I was reminded of what wilderness truly is. To think, I was gazing at many, many square feet of land where a human foot had possibly never stepped. It was just so big, so untouched - the definition of wild. ‍

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Some places on earth are favorites for me because of what they tell about my story - maybe it's the campus fountain I got married next to; maybe it's the hill I sat on with my best friends nearly every night during the summer after high school; maybe it's my grandparents' 80-acres of peaceful prairie... All of those places, they're about me. But Polychrome is one of my favorite spots, not because of what it says about my story, but because of what it declares about my God.

And when I read Romans 9, I'm transported to this same heart space: I feel small, but not in a bad way. At first blush, we might read this chapter and be tempted to point an accusing finger at God: That's. NOT. Fair. But what if, for the next few moments, as you read Romans 9 once more this week, you read this chapter with a heart, not to cross-examine God's ethical practices as though you were the judge, but rather to take in the overwhelming mercy of our God in light of his true might, power, and sovereignty?

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Maybe what we need is to take a little roadtrip and crack open Romans 9 while we sit on a boulder bigger than us, on the edge of a mountain, at the feet of even bigger mountains, staring out over one of the largest expanses of untouched wilderness in the nation. Maybe then, we will remember that the Lord alone is both Creator God and Just Judge, and I am neither. Maybe in that place, God's Word will humble our haughty hearts into grateful ones when he says, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (v. 16). Maybe there, we will finally realize that very little depends on our desires or our efforts, but that every morning rests on our good God's great, expansive, and truly wild mercy for his beloved children. Maybe there, we will remember that we are small, but He is not. And that's very, very good.