I am sure that every religious person, every believer in God, at some point wonders, “Why doesn’t God just straighten everything out?” Why doesn’t the all-powerful and all-loving Creator of the universe simply deal with the injustice, suffering, violence, and sin that so bedevil His world? Well, we can hear precisely this cry in the prophets of ancient Israel. All of them – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Zechariah, etc. – utter some version of “How long, O Lord?” One form that this expectation takes is a yearning that the God of Israel would come to reign as king, which is to say, as one who has the power and authority to right every wrong.
People never forget their first job. Mine was as a bus boy at a high-end restaurant called Jim’s Steakhouse. I learned how to bus tables and serve everyone, including the waitresses, all with very different personalities, with a smile.