Monday, March 22, 2010

Devotional Snapshot 55 - Sovereignty

"When the clouds hide the mountains they are as real as in the sunshine; so the promise and the Providence of God are unchanged by the obscurity of our faith, or the difficulties of our position." Daily Help Charles H. Spurgeon May 5

"The idea that God could know, and foreknow, everything without controlling everything is not only unscriptural but illogical." NKJV Bible commentary pg. 952

Amos 3:2, 6 "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities...If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?"

Your election ("You only have I known..."), Your sovereignty ("...calamity...will not the LORD have done it?"), chooses one, destroys another. Disciplines one, comforts another.

There are calamities going on in the world. I can not think about them too long. I move my mind away from the atrocities going on--the beheadings, the buried alive, the molestations and torture. I choose to forget them because they make me sad and mad. Bombs went off in London, killing over 40, injuring 700. A plane crash in Turkey, a hurricane in New Orleans, the burning alive of a missionary father and his two small sons, our two flat tires, the leaky roof--from the terrible to the mundane--all God's sovereignty. Your sovereignty makes me fall hard on You for understanding. The questions come fast and furious. Not all are answered.

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things." But let us be very clear that God is not the author of sin or the author of evil. Evil is the wicked "I", the merciless "ME". We are still held accountable for our actions, be they good or bad. And yet, all for His glory; all for a cause; all with a meaning.

It is too wonderful for me to grasp. It is too high, out of my reach. It is fearful and comforting at the same time. Without a Sovereign God all would be chaos. With a Sovereign God who is Good, all cosmic chaos has a great, eternal, good plan. Nothing out of or beyond Your control. Your Word tells me You are everywhere; in the air I breathe, in the atoms that hold me together, in every beat of my heart. You are the cause of it all.

Today's paper said a five year old girl drowned in an Iowa river. Job cried on the death of his ten children: "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21

Teach me to believe Your goodness and trust in Your sovereignty everyday, at all times, with any news. Help me to think rightly about You when calamity comes and forgive me when I fall into angry questions.

This is hard to think about, I know. Lean in on Jesus for understanding. Ask the Spirit to speak truth to you. Be willing to hear even the difficult. God is always good. Always right. Always Sovereign. Don't you find it a great comfort that God never loses control?

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