Relax. Everything Is Under Control.
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8: 28 New American Standard Version
Embrace this, dear reader: God has it all under control. Everything. So we can rest assured that there is nothing that happens that God hasn’t either deliberately allowed to happen, or directly caused to happen. I pray you’ll weigh this concept, and take it to heart.
Can we accept this concept of truth? I hope so. For it echoes God’s Sovereignty and greatness into every aspect of this faith we claim to have in Him.
It’s both funny and sad that so many people may be willing to give thanks to The Lord for any blessings they might receive. Yet so many of these same Christians (and non-Christians alike) have difficulty believing that God would ever deem anything heartbreaking or distressing to occur. So-called “natural disasters”, starvation, killings, and deadly disease. . .
I promise you that The Lord Almighty is not only aware of such things, dear reader. He’s also arranging certain things to transpire, exactly as they’re meant to.
Now, this isn’t to disparage God as some might guess, but rather to recognize, honor, and yes, exalt him to His righteous place in our hearts, minds, and souls.
Think on this, dear reader: To deny God’s knowledge of anything is to deny God’s omniscience. Whereas, to deny His ability to do anything about a situation is to deny His omnipotence. Now, to do so would not only be insulting to God; it would only limit, and compromise our faith that we may otherwise thrive in. That’d be retarded. And downright counterproductive to boot. What’s more, we can’t be attempting to put our mental limitations on God, as God Himself has no limitations. I realize how I must sound like a broken record as I emphasize the following. But~ so be it. The Lord Almighty can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, by any means that He sees fit. And I honestly don’t know why we would ever want to impose any sort of restrictions on The Lord anyway. I mean, He is Our Savior, looking out for our best interest in every moment, and every aspect of our lives. So why would we ever wish to cast any nonsensical limits upon Him >>> even if we could?!? We would only be compromising our own well-being. Though some Christians do try.
( Told you that people are stupid 🙂
Some have even suggested that God won’t interfere with the affairs of mankind unless asked to do so. They’ve argued that it would somehow upset that precious apple cart we humans call free-will. Wishful thinking, I says. In fact, we can easily prove this notion as anti-biblical, and therefore flawed. Go ahead, if you like – – – pick any account from The Bible, and seek God’s involvement in it. I’ll bet you find it. Simply recite John 3:16, and there’s no denying God’s involvement in ‘biblical times’ or today. Plus, most things that The Father does on our behalf aren’t even done at our request. It’s true.
“Okay then. . . “, someone may ask, “how does it all work with God? Does The Almighty simply allow bad things to happen to punish some, while causing favorable things to reward the good?” Umm, no~ not exactly. Or, at least, not always. In fact, if you remember what we covered earlier, we may not always recognize a good or bad thing when we see it. Usually, we can only discern that which is pleasant from the unpleasant. But God always knows what’s best all around. In fact, sometimes a so-called tragedy will strike, and though we may be hurt, God has allowed it, or yes, even caused it to transpire for good reason. It’s typically at this time we desire answers, but whether we can fathom the reasons that He does things matters not. Our God is accountable to no one. And this where that true faith that we claim to possess must come into play, dear reader. We must ask ourselves whether we truly trust God with our everything . . . though if we’ve already accepted the gift of our salvation through Jesus, then we already have, amen?
For as we said ‘yes’ to God, to The Way He gave us, to being adopted into His family as dearly beloved children, to becoming new creations in The Lord, we also said yes to trusting in God and His vision, that is, the true vision of things as they truly are. (What?? ~ As though we’re all willing to trust God to get us into Heaven someday, but not entirely trust Him in earthly matters?!? That’d seem downright ridiculous to me.) We’ve been shown the truth. And God is not only worthy of our gratitude and praise, but of our everlasting trust as well.
Of course, the problem for most of us still lies in the fact that we’re merely human beings, and can’t see the ‘big picture’ as The Lord does. What’s more, even if we could, there’s zero guarantee we could ever comprehend all that’s involved.
If you’ve ever played the game of chess, then you know the importance of seeking out all of the possible combinations of moves, not only of your own, but of others, and up to many moves ahead. We may just think: “Well, let’s see~ If I do this, then he’ll most likely do that, then I would do this over here, which will probably cause him to counter with that, to which I’ll . . . whatever.” It’s almost like a flowchart of sorts, but with many, many variables seemingly pending. This leaves you and I typically relying on educated guesses in hopes of bringing about whatever desired results we may. But life has few guarantees, and even if we were able to succeed in achieving that wanted conclusion, who’s to say that it was for the best?!? At times, we don’t even know all that we think we know. Yet one of the very few things that we can rely on is that God loves us, and that He is worthy of our trust. ( You may call that two things, dear reader, though they run concurrent. Praise The Lord 🙂
God sees everything, knows everything beyond a shadow of a doubt, even our hearts, and just how we’ll react to any given circumstance. Mind you, I’m not saying The Lord knows anything within 99.5 percent accuracy. I’m saying that God knows everything one hundred percent, with zero variance. In any given moment, in the lives of millions upon millions of us, and how all of our actions will further affect the world around us, God already knows everything in advance. (In fact, I won’t even get into the way The Alpha and The Omega are actually omnipresent in time and space as well. I’ll leave that for you to ponder, dear reader.) (It is pretty wild though.) Now, sometimes people’s lives may be right on-track with a trajectory of where God would {ideally} want them to be, and He may opt to leave them be in that given moment, without interference. But I dare say that God usually takes an active part in the destiny of every Christian at some point. And not only every Christian, but most likely every non-believer as well . . . and every angel . . . and every single caterpillar. So even if the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings causes an effect from some far away land, you best believe The Good Lord had something to do with that as well. All by design. All by His design . . . right down to the last detail.
Keep in mind, dear reader, that even with all that’s transpiring world-wide, each of us still has a purpose to serve. The question pending: Are we being good stewards of the time He’s given us here on Earth, by following His lead, and serving that purpose? ‘Cause if we’re not, God will often get (for lack of better phrase) further involved. Does this mean that we don’t have any say in the directions our lives go? Or that we don’t make our own decisions? Welllll, we do . . . though Our God is a persuasive God, to say the least, and it is forever His prerogative to “persuade” any one of us as He pleases. Amen? (Although it’s fairly self-explanatory, we’ll address the concept of God’s Own Prerogative in just a few.)
For the moment, however, let’s just say that God sometimes intervenes, and “helps” us to make the right choices. Though at times, He also allows others to choose to do what we would classify as wrong, and without disruption ~ yet also to His good discretion.
Consider if you will, the history of Jonah. Here we find a man of God, a prophet, one that God would speak to directly. He was ordered by God to go to the great city of Nineveh, to share a proclamation from The Lord. But Jonah didn’t wanna go. Instead, he decided to make a getaway by means of a different ship leaving Joppa for Tarshish, (a destination in another direction). Jonah made this decision. He did what he did. And as far as we know, he did it of his own accord. Nobody forced Jonah to run from God . . . though God obviously knew all that would transpire, long before Jonah did what he did . . . make that looong before The Lord even spoke to Jonah . . . make that looong before Jonah’s parents were even born . . .
. . . So, yeah, everything went perfectly according to plan. Now, obviously, God could have easily prevented Jonah from even reaching his boat, but He didn’t. Rather, God waited for that vessel to voyage out to sea before causing a great storm that rocked the ship til it was on the very verge of breaking apart. Of course, this storm terrified the men on board, (just as The Lord intended it to), causing them to cast lots, thereby finding that the blame (not coincidentally) fell upon Jonah. It was at this time (according to God’s design) that Jonah shared the good news of God with them. So, the men consequently prayed to God for mercy, as they threw Jonah overboard, in order to calm the sea. The sea calmed. And this affected the hearts of those men, just as The Lord knew it would.
Then God appointed a giant fish (traditionally, a whale:) to swallow Jonah up, and keep him inside for three days and three nights (as a sign to future would-be believers). This, in turn, caused Jonah to pray out in his distress whole-heartedly to God. To which, God commanded the great fish to vomit Jonah up onto dry land. And The Lord once again spoke to Jonah saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” This time, Jonah arose and “decided” to obey God, and so, headed out to Nineveh, and shared the warning God gave him to convey. (You see what a great motivator The Lord can be, dear reader?) It should also probably be noted that this was a task that Jonah still wasn’t thrilled with, and never would have followed through with without The Lord’s persuasive “encouragement”. But, he ended up conveying what he was told to, amen? So then, upon hearing said warning, the people of Nineveh repented in sackcloth and ashes, and God decided to have mercy upon them, which was His prerogative and intention all along. Was it not?
Now I ask you, dear reader, how many times did God “work” the situation to fit His will being brought into fruition? We could go back and count the seemingly individual instances that God took part in our story. Though the truth is actually quite simple. The answer is once. God has continually been involved in the paths that all of our lives have taken, without ceasing from the start; and He originally put everything in motion way before Jonah’s time. . . or ours.
Pretty awesome (and mind-blowing) to consider, that any Supreme Being could orchestrate details as God does. Plus, debatably even more awesome would be that Almighty God would be willing to orchestrate those details for his loved ones as He does. I don’t know about you, but I don’t even like being bothered to make espresso for my friends.
‘Course some people will never appreciate all that The Lord does. And, as I’ve alluded to before, lots of people aren’t so comfy with the thought of not having at least a little control in this world. Or should I say, the mirage or illusion of having control? Surely, certain words such as interference, intervention, manipulation, discipline, and being controlled have all taken on negative connotations at times, and hardly appeal to our humanity. . . even when it’s God Himself arranging things. (Notice how I’m sugar-coating things with words like orchestrating and arranging here? I’m trying to provide comfort. Same difference though, I know:) Point being, few people enjoy thinking of themselves as some pawn with little to no power over their own destiny. Plenty of times, I’ve heard the argument made that God could never interfere with our decision-making process, or our free-will to do as we please , for if He did. . . “Why, we’d be nothing more than robots!” (Some people say ‘puppets’:) Either way, it’s a lame argument. I ask you, has God make us like robots, without emotions or an appreciation for beauty? Not in the least! Did God make us puppets, without a personality or a thought running through our minds? No way, Jose! I’ve got no strings on me! But even if God were ever to make us into robots, or puppets, or puppies for that matter ~ wouldn’t that be His decision to make? Certainly! And puppies are freakin’ adorable. So what the hell ~
Furthermore, haven’t we already given God our blessings to take that control in our lives whenever He deems it beneficial? We absolutely have. And most of us did so in our greatest moment of clarity, knowing that God can direct our lives much better than we could ever hope to ourselves.
Loving God and trusting in Him. It’s what our faith is truly all about, dear reader. One might even say that it’s about exalting God to His rightful throne above everything else in our lives. After all, that is the true meaning of ‘worship’.
And once again ~ Given that The Lord Our God is all-knowing and all-powerful, reigning sovereign over everyone and everything. . . and that, complimented with His righteousness, and His great love and compassion for us. . . whom else could be more worthy of our trust?!? Seriously. If you’d like to take a moment to reflect on all this, I think God will grant you that moment. Yet, if you’re ready to read on here, I believe The Lord will allow you that instead. . . but if He didn’t want you to, do we honestly believe that He couldn’t provide some ample diversion to keep you from it?!? You see where we’re going here, yes? See, some folks seem to think that God may be somehow restricted by what we ‘allow’ Him to do in our lives. “Not so”, I say smirking. In fact, it’s actually the exactly opposite. At this very moment, God has every situation imaginable under control. I’m going to type this in again ~
At this very moment, God has every situation imaginable under control. A truly massive yet intricate concept indeed, yes? So let’s just let that sink in.
As stated before, God is God, and simply does as He pleases, which is whatever He deems best. He doesn’t require our green light. Nor does He need an engraved invitation. Though He may appreciate our willingness to have The Holy Spirit working in our lives. And He may have considered our wishes whilst creating certain situations for us. But when it comes to the subject of anyone “allowing” God to work in their life?!? Preposterous. Perhaps it’s just a matter of semantics to some, or poor wording on their part. Maybe what those individuals actually mean to promote is ‘allowing God to work in one’s life without resisting’? Maybe? If you think about it though, it really is a mute point. So, let me just say this, in order to put things in perspective ~
God has WAY more control over all of our lives than we could ever have over that of a puppy. . . or even that of an infant. Though I dare say, most of us probably feel as though we could handle either of those, especially if fully focusing our attention on the challenge. And wouldn’t it be our place to tend to the well-being of either, if we felt so inclined?
God’s Own Prerogative
Not to soft sell anything here, or to make excuses, or rationalize The Lord’s behavior in the least. . . for once again, God doesn’t need our approval. He doesn’t have to make His case to us, or anyone. But it may help us to keep in mind that God loves us, and as our loving Father, it’s forever His prerogative to do whatever He feels best. So, let’s try to view things from the following perspective. (And for those of you that have kids, or even beloved pets, this may prove easy-peasy.)
Supposing you’ve got a newborn baby, or a newborn pup for that matter, that you feel inclined to care for. You know darn well that your little bundle-of-joy has their own inclinations, and in no time, they’ll be attempting to exercise their free-will to roam wherever they please- – – put whatever they want in their mouths- – – and most likely, drop a deuce wherever they darn well feel like it. Sounds like fun, yes?
So, what if you choose to impede their path as they’re heading out the front door, or into the street? Or you decide to grab that pantyhose otherwise on it’s way down their throats? Or, you opt to swat their little butts with a rolled-up newspaper when they poop on the new carpet? (Incidentally, this works great on pets as well.) But I ask you, wouldn’t it be your prerogative to enact any of these moves that you deemed right? { Say yes. } In fact, one could say it’d be your God-given right.
“But what of the kid’s free-will?!?”, someone pleads. “Aren’t you depriving the kid of their free-will?” In a sense, sure. Though technically, the argument could be made that the bambino can do whatever he or she likes, and it’s only the parent using their own free-will as well that’s hindering the little one from bringing their own wishes to fruition. And that’s no doubt a good thing, isn’t it?!?
I’d say so. In way more cases than not, the average loving parent is going to look out for the kid’s well-being better than the youngster ever could. Amen?
Sooo ~ if we humans, fallible as we are, can be blessed in making good decisions for the best of our loved ones, then how much more so a Perfect Father who knows absolutely everything, and literally makes no mistakes? Mind you, dear reader, all of this really is just food for thought, in that the overall point is mute when it comes to validating God’s motions. We’ve said it before. The Lord doesn’t need anyone’s validation.
In short, it’s forever God’s Own Prerogative to do just as He pleases. And He does.