The Gospel According to Strawberry

I am teaching children's Sunday School tomorrow for about 4 weeks.  It has more to do with my seminary class than with being a really nice Christian.  I need a grade, man!  So let's begin with the beginning: Genesis.  As I ponder the majesty and glory of God’s wonderful amazing world and all that God did those first days of creation, I am left with the question “Why did God make teeth?”  I’m serious.  In God’s magnificent wisdom and knowledge and LOVE, why would a compassionate God create a beloved creation with something that could cause… so…. much…. pain???  I ask you; do you relish the thought of 12” needles being stuck up into your gums?  How about a drill?  Since I found out I need a root canal, I am contemplating such questions of God.  The mere name (root canal...not God....well.....yes God too!) sends shivers up my spine and brings my blood pressure up to the nth degree.  Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate dentists but I have to wonder what kind of issues they endured early in their life that they would seek such a sadistic profession!  (I’m also taking Human Growth and Development this semester so maybe Freud will help me find the answer!) 

In Genesis 1:29 God says “I now give to you all the plants on the earth that yield seeds and all the trees whose fruit produces its seeds within it.  These will be your food.”  Now why couldn’t God create a food where teeth are not needed?  You really don’t need teeth to gum manna or gulp down the precious seeds of a persimmon.  I think of my babies.  What did they survive on?  Mother’s milk or some type of liquid diet, right?  I wonder why God didn’t create us humans to just stay on that kind of diet.  Eve would never have eaten that forbidden fruit unless she gummed it to death and by then maybe she could have changed her mind and changed the course of the history.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Hebrews 5 that infants need milk but that mature Christians need solid food.  I still have to wonder what kind of life we humans might have had with just a liquid diet.  Would there be obesity?  I read an article about a girl who has only survived on ramen noodles for 13 of her 18 year old life.  Doctors are claiming she is malnourished and has the inside body organs of an 80 year old.  Wouldn't that scare you if you were 18 years old?  50 years old?

Since I'm stuck with my teeth, I guess I’ll have to trust God and God’s ultimate wisdom because as for me, my wisdom teeth were extracted a long time ago!