God Is In Control???

Home-grown terrorist Nidal Hassan stunned the country this week with the carnage at Fort Hood Army Base. How can a sovereign God allow this type of carnage to exist? Is God really in control, or is man's free will an irritation that God has to work around? For that matter, how can a loving God allow events like Katrina, the tsunami, 9.11, and now this horror in Texas, to even happen. It hardly seems that the "Kingdom" is at hand. What possible good can come from these events? It would seem that God is taking too many days off, and the efforts of the saints to declare Christ are only hampered by these events. Kingdom building seems set back every time God drops the ball and something ungodly happens.


I really hope I never understand fully the sovereignty of God. There is beauty in a little mystery. I've heard it preached by great preachers, and thought, "Wow, that makes a lot of sense," but came away actually realizing that I don't and never will really understand it. Nevertheless, God is in control. The beauty in it I can only see as it reflects itself in my own life.

I walk towards Christ. But I, as a mere human, still have the need to make choices. I need to think that at some level I control at least a little of my destiny, if only to make the choice to choose God's way over mine over and over. I need to know that I can choose sin (my way), or I can choose to trust and depend on Christ (God's way). Just knowing that I am choosing would seem to take away from any growth in my humility, and perhaps it does, but I still need to choose. That's what makes me human. My thoughts, my discernment, my reasoning with or without emotionalism or creativity is what makes me the intricate and loved person that God has made me; but the very effort of even trying to make my will to be what God has willed, me choosing, is in itself all about me. What I want. My life. What a mystery.

And God does have me in his control. I don't believe that my free will hampers God's control over me. His thoughts and ways are far above what I think or understand. Disasters will keep happening in the world, and in my life, and God is in control of it all.

We are in the midst of a great work by God, the greatest thing, to reveal himself through Christ, reveal his grace and redemptive work. Every part of the world, the good and bad, is a part of his plan. His complete control over events is what actually glorifies the very grace that has been sent down to save us. Only his complete control over events would give him the glory. His grace is glorified by being in complete control. Our sin, my sin, cannot mess up his plan in anyway. It's all a part of the plan. No, he's not making me sin. (I don't need any help with that.) But God doesn't change his plans according to what I do. He didn't look ahead in time from the beginning of the world and foresee how I would make my decisions and act accordingly, changing his plans so I don't screw things up for him. That would leave God's plan up to me, hardly glorifying him and his sovereign grace. No, somehow God is in control of things. All of it. Everything. And I hope I never understand it until I see him face to face. The mystery doesn't challenge me to dig deeper and try to understand it. To me, it's beautiful just the way it is.

For now, I praise him for his mercy and grace, for reuniting me with him, and I'm at peace knowing things are going exactly according to his plan. Amen.