The title of this week’s blog was not intended to be an attention grabber. Or, well…ok, maybe it was. Actually, it’s a pretty legitimate question. Is God really in control?
I’m sure most all you reading this has either heard or said these words yourself, “God is in control.” Maybe it was in this context – “I don’t know what the result of the test will be, but God is in control.” Or maybe it was something like this – “It doesn’t really matter who wins the election, but God is in control.” Or “Wasn’t it awful what happened to those poor children? Well, all I know is God is in control.”
A couple of years ago, I began to think about this common, overused cliché. I know what you may be thinking right now – “Kevin, aren’t you being nitpicky about this? After all, it’s just a cliché.” If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize like I did that it’s more than just a common saying.
I’ve come to understand that there are two reasons why this phrase is used so often: 1) We don’t know how to handle mystery. In other words, something bad has happened or is happening and I can’t explain it, so it must be God’s doing. After all, He is sovereign. 2) We believe God really does control everything, therefore I must resolutely accept it as His divine will, however evil it may be.
Before you accuse me of heresy, let me say that God is absolutely sovereign. He is the creator and He is supreme. He is totally in charge of all His created order.
However, He is not in control. We are.
And I’m glad.
To say that God is not in control would be considered blasphemy in many religious circles today. The assumption is made that since God is sovereign, nothing can happen without His approval.
2 Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
So that must mean that God, being “in control” should make everyone repent since He’s not willing that any should perish, right?
God has chosen us to partner with Him in His great world-restoration project. That has been His plan since the beginning. N.T. Wright, in his book Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues says,
“The point about God’s authority is that the whole bible is about God establishing his kingdom on earth as in heaven, completing (in other words) the project begun but aborted in Genesis 1-3.”
Who aborted that project? Adam and Eve. Yet, as perfect as that beginning was, God chose not to control. Instead, He took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. (Gen. 2:15)
God restarted the project through Jesus (The Second Adam), and He will complete it through us!
If you need your god to be a control freak, then there are plenty out there to choose from. There are even a few cults that will be glad to have you in their control. Heck, you can even find some Christian churches that will be glad get you under control! I’ll save that topic for another blog.
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s;
But the earth he has given to the children of men. (Psalm 115:16)
And…
The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness,
The world and those who dwell therein. (Psalm 24:1)
Is they contradictory to one another?
No.
In tension with each other?
Yes.
It must be one or the other. Or can it be both?
Yes. It must be both. It has to be both. God would have it no other way.
I’m so glad He doesn’t control me. That’s my job to do as I allow His Holy Spirit (one of His fruit is self-control) to do what He was sent to do – work with me, and I with Him. As a son of God I am in partnership with Him in His world-restoration project.
If the thought of changing the world seems too large, it’s because it is. You begin to change the world by changing the world inside you. You start by casting aside your preconceived ideas about how this whole God-saving-the-world thing works and ask Him to give you His thoughts. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was and still am.
Ask Him.
Kevin