What I Mean When I Say that "God in in Control"

Here are just a few examples of bad leaders from the Bible:

1) The leaders during Jesus’ time oversaw his murder. It was tragic and awful, but it was also God’s plan being carried out exactly as he had planned. God was in control. 

2) Esther’s king had some pretty bad qualities: murderer, ignorant, mistreated women, racist, sexist, arrogant. God used Esther to save an entire group of people. If she had chickened out, the Bible says God would have found someone else to carry out his plan, but she was encouraged by her uncle who told her that maybe she was made for “such a time as this.” God was in control.

 

3) King Nebuchadnezzar threatened to murder anyone who didn’t bow down and worship him and his Gods. God was in control when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the furnace. They lived and King Nebuchadnezzar believed in their God. 

4) Consider the story of Moses. The Egyptian king was mistreating the Israelite slaves. Yet years and years before this became a problem, God had already been working out his plan and putting the right people in exactly the right positions. Moses ended up having to flee Egypt, but he made the right connections and was able to carry out God’s plan to save all the Israelites. Even when an entire sea was in their way, God was in control. The same God who worked miracles to save them, is still doing so today. 

These are just 4 examples. I also need to point out that the Christians living underneath these rulers all faced extremely difficult decisions. Moses’ mother had to break the law and hide Moses to keep him alive. Jesus never would have been hung on the cross if his parents hadn’t listened to the angel and fled to Egypt to hide for a few years. Esther had to risk her life. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fully planned on being killed for the stand they took.

When I say that God is in control, I’m not saying that I think everything in America is going to be smiles and roses. I’m just saying that God has a plan. God can do impossible things. God was in the past, he’s in the present, and he’s also seen the future, so he knows exactly what needs to happen. The next four years might be the beginning of murdering Christians in the United States, but I would still know that God is in control, and that it is all to carry out his plan. The suffering we face on Earth is nothing compared to what we have to look forward to in eternity.

I do not think God is so small that an uncovered political scandal can surprise him.

I do not think God is so small that he gets worried when a candidate has a plan that goes against the Bible.

One day every knee will bow before God. For the time being, he is still giving us time to decide if we will accept his forgiveness and surrender to him. One day that time will run out and he will take up his rightful place as King on Earth as well as in Heaven. He will set up his kingdom here, and his reign will be purpose. Since we’re still in the period of waiting and decision making, God is allowing humans to exercise their free will and make decisions on their own. Some humans make pretty crappy decisions like choosing to murder police officers or shooting members of a particular church or recruiting people to strap on bombs and kill members of a particular race or nationality or religion.

As a human, this would cause me to freak out and try desperately to “regain control.” Except that I don’t see the big picture. I see isolated events and I wonder. I’m tempted to worry. I imagine what the future might hold. I wonder what it felt like for people who went through similar scary times in the past.

God doesn’t wonder. He doesn’t freak out. He doesn’t have to regain control because he hasn’t lost it. In the Old Testament he talks about giving nations over to their depravity. Isn’t that what’s happening here in America so often? People want to do wrong and are even proud of it. God doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t approve of it, but he’s giving us free will. He could wipe us all out with a giant flood again if he wanted to, but he already promised not to do that again, and I believe his promises. God was there when people suffered under horrible leaders in the past. He was with Jews living under Hitler. Jesus is God so he definitely knows what it feels like to have leaders that don’t support Christians. He is in countries right now were Christians are meeting in basements with contraband Bibles risking their lives to talk about him. He sees America’s future and the future of the whole world. He’s already written to let us know what to expect in the future, so it won’t be a surprise. His plan is still on track.

When I say God is in control, I mean he already knows who will win the election. If he had a reason for the other candidate to win, then the other candidate would win. I know that whoever our next president is, I will pray for that person and accept that God has placed them in authority. If that leader wants to require me to do something that goes against my ability to worship and obey God, then I will place God’s law over America’s law, but if we simply have a difference of opinion, I will respectfully do my best to be persuasive but also open to the possibility that maybe what that leader wants is also what God wants, and sometimes I’m wrong.

When I say God is in control, I don’t use that as an excuse not to do my duty. It is still important for me to pray, to read the Bible to learn more about God’s character and revealed will for me, to make difficult decisions, to be as informed about the election decisions as possible, to vote in the way that I believe will be most honoring to God (note: in the way that I believe. I might be wrong, but I still think I need to be active just like Jesus, Esther, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Moses, and Moses’ mother were all active.) I’m extremely thankful that I don’t feel worried that I may lose my life or be thrown in prison for voting the way that I do.

Psalm 2:4, 6

The one enthroned in Heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.

“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” 

God can laugh because he is in control. He always has been, and he always will be. He can laugh like I laugh when the tennis ball rolls under the bed and my dog thinks life is over and starts panicking because he can’t get to the ball. I know I can bend down and retrieve it with no trouble at all. My dog will be just fine for a few seconds without it, but he is so near-sighted that he is blinded by his present predicament. I don’t want to belittle the tragedies that face our country and our world, and God is heartbroken over the death and destruction that surround us, but he sees the big picture and he WILL get the tennis ball for us and right everything that is wrong with the world in his time. 

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