Paper Isn't Unique

In a short exercise in class this last week, my professor had each of us students write a short story about whatever inanimate object that came immediately to mind. I was impressed as some of the students were obviously gifted creative writing majors that Hollywood or some publishing company is bound to snatch up one of these days, and their stories were written from the perspective of whatever object it was came to mind. I think, though, of all the stories, the one that stood out to me the most was a poetic story about a piece of paper -- how a single piece of paper is not unique within a three-ring binder. A piece of paper does not stand out from all of the others that look just like it -- with its lines of blue and single line of red contrasting upon the whiteness of it. A single sheet of paper is not unique. That is, until it is "covered in black ink." Thinking about the simplicity of this caused me to think of people. Not that people are simple. By no means. Rather, it is a simple metaphor that is applicable. Instead, thinking that unlike paper, each person is unique. And they don't need black ink in order to be so. Now, some argue that by saying so, one is automatically saying the reverse -- if everyone is unique, than that leaves no one who is non-unique, which in turn leaves no one truly unique. But, that isn't how Jesus sees it. We were each created in His image -- He knows us in the secret place. He knows our getting up and our lying down. He sees the heart. He sees the sin and iniquity, and yet He freely gives grace.

Watching people is fun. You see personalities, cultures, ideas and worldviews just by watching people. This last week was an especially fun week to watch people on campus. With the start of classes at the UW on Wednesday (I think we can safely boast of being the last school in the state to start the 2006-2007 academic year), there was a sense of eagerness and excitement everywhere you walked. Bands were brought in on temporary stages. Food vendors came pouring in so much so that it resembled the county fair, and you could you smell the grease of the polish hotdogs as soon as you stepped outside of a building. Tables spilled out of the student union building onto the front lawn as the various and very diverse clubs were out in full force as fellow students attempted to recruit you to join them. Fraternities. Sororities. The eager and somewhat overwhelmed freshmen. The seasoned graduate student. They were all there.

But beyond the carnival atmosphere, I was reminded again of the carnality and depravity of man without God. Now, I'm not trying to sound harsh nor I am trying to sound judgmental -- I am merely stating the way it is. Romans 1 is in full force on the UW campus. But, as Paul writes, "Thanks be to God!" that He does not give up on man. Instead, "He gave them over" but it does not say "He gave them up." And, it's not just the UW -- Romans 1 is in full force anywhere you go in the world. But, Romans 1 isn't all there is. We have fifteen more chapters to the book of Romans that God wants to take us through. He wants to take us from the truly sinful state that we were once in to where we are led of the Spirit (chapter 8) and going out to the nations proclaiming the Gospel (chapter 16). Oh, how the Lord loves people. He absolutely loves the thousands of undergrads, grads, faculty, and staff that comprise the campus here. I can't help it, sometimes I walk around crying (people must think that I'm failing my exams left and right at the sight of me) when I think about the lost on this campus. It is my prayer that the believers on the campus are flaming torches for Jesus there -- that He would be honored and glorified, and that the lost may know Him in and through every part of our lives while we are there for such a limited time only. May it be so. That there would be such a hunger for Jesus. There really isn't anything else that matters beyond seeing souls come into the Kingdom. And, unless we truly get that into our inner man, unless we are as Spurgeon so wonderfully put it, "filled with an agony for them," we will not see Kingdom expansion. How often are the believers, who are to be the salt of the earth, caught up in the frivolity of humanity? Is that going to last? Or all too soon will that fad away like the bands and the food vendors do after this weekend?

Unlike paper, as my classmate so brilliantly wrote, people are unique. Right now, they are smeared with sin. But, hallelujah to the One who can cover them, not with "black ink," but with the Blood of the Lamb.