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| Photo credit: www.roots-of-truth.com |
First Brexit, now Trump, who knows, next Arsenal will be winning the EPL. Jokes aside, this remarkable turn of events has caught the world by surprise. Who knew it would come to this, certainly not, a wide section of the media and political analysts, pundits e.t.c. These outcomes were supposed to be improbable, so they said. Come D-day, they were proved wrong, terribly wrong.
The scarcely unthinkable is now a reality, one which we will just have to accept and move on. Whatever your opinions are about Trump or Brexit, you can agree with me, that we live in very interesting times, messed up even. Front-line headlines, you-tube videos, blog posts continue to document the bedlam as it unfolds. Sensationalist utterances by politicians, grand theft of money, the celebration of one undergoing a sex change, a student taking a drug in the hope of passing a national examination, for many things have hit rock bottom. Amidst the chaos, we are compelled to look up, fists clenched, crying out, "God, why don't you do something?!!!"
On the other hand, an atheist's conviction will only be emboldened, "There is no God, if so, how can he permit such decadence to occur at such a grand scale?" A second line of thought is to conclude that God is not as mighty as Christians claim him to be, but he is in fact a toothless God.
In the face of such adversity, these schools of thought are inevitable. As Syria, continues to be decimated by war, ISIS still looming large, South Sudan being on the precipice of destruction, it is hard to depict God as a God who is loving, merciful, gracious, peaceful.
As incredulous as it may sound, God is in control. As much as there is a bucketload of evidence all around us to suggest the contrary, God is still sovereign, God's got this. He isn't pacing up and down in heaven, distraught and tongue-tied that his good plans for this world have gone bust. I make this absurd claim because if there is anything that history has shown us, it is that history repeats itself.
For every Trump or Brexit, there has been far, far worse in Herod, Nero, Hitler, Israel splitting into two kingdoms, Exile to Babylon. Did God's chosen nation splitting signal the end of God's plan? Did the zealous persecution of Christians by Herod and Nero or Jews by Hitler put a stop to the gospel of Salvation by Christ to all mankind?
The answer is negative. The gospel still spreads, it still impacts lives, scores of people continue to put their hope in Jesus with every passing day. Nero's efforts could not stifle God's agenda. Israel, still is on the global map, despite the gloomy split of the past.
A vast majority of the time, we lean on God's attributes as a God who is loving, who is forgiving, who is gracious, sometimes we may forget that this God is almighty, sovereign, infinitely powerful. It's easy to mistake him for toothless when he opts not to show his vast power and rid the world of evil in an instant. It's easy to label him docile when immorality and corruption are rampant. It's easy to lose sight of him being the perfect judge when all-around injustices are too numerous to count.
It's hard to imagine someone as all-powerful when they just seem to be silent or passive when circumstances call for robust, immediate action. God has never been one to be easy to understand, Isaiah astutely says that his ways and thoughts are above those of our own(Isaiah 55:9). Unlike us, he isn't limited by time, space, gravity etc, he can act however he choses to act and it will yield his desired result.
I find God sovereignty and awesome power in his central quality of being love. God is love.(1 John 4:8) My guess is that is precisely why he created man in his image. He created a being, in his own image, not out of necessity or that he was imperfect and needed a being to complete him, but with the intention of relating with man in love. Love, as we know, is a commitment to the good of another person or thing. Commitment is about being dedicated or devoted to one person or thing. Commitment involves choice, since to be dedicated or devoted to someone involves deliberately foregoing other things or people and choosing, instead, to commit to that one thing or person. Plus, we know that choice involves free will, since only someone with a free will has the capacity to choose between committing or not committing, lack of a free will is compulsion/an obligation or slavery towards one specific object.
The thing that blows me away, to which I can't wrap my mind around, is that God, purposely, intentionally gave man free will to chose to love him or to chose not to. We, human beings, create stuff to do things for us, never for themselves. We create machines, devices, robots(out of necessity) to do our bidding not their bidding and it bothers us when they don't fulfill that purpose. God, on there other hand, did not need man to complete him or make him feel fulfilled, but he chose to create man with the intention of loving man and man loving him back, but since he wanted us to love him perfectly, he gave us free will to chose to love him.
Free will, means that we have the capacity to chose to love him, obey him and reflect his glory but it also means we have free will to chose to ignore him, forsake him, spite him and go against everything he stands for. Apparently, God didn't see it as a risk. He wasn't terrified by the probability that he could create man to love him but man was free to chose and could in fact end up hating God. That didn't faze him. That too me, speaks volumes of the level of power and control God wields, if he wasn't frightened at the thought of his creation going against him. That too me, says all there is to know, God is in control and nothing that occurs here on earth really surprises him, neither is it too much for him to handle despite him not choosing to do so.
To me, that is scary, scary in a good way because I used the free will he gave me to chose to love him and accept his son Jesus as my lord and savior, whose death and resurrection, reconciled me to this God and made it possible for me to relate with him just the same way Adam and Eve did, before the fall. Thus, I can be convinced, whether good or bad, God loves those who love him and can be trusted. In the face of adversity or difficult moments or imminent doom, like Eli, I can say, "He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes."(1 Samuel 3:18)
I'm confident that this all-knowing God knows all the possibilities regarding our free will. He is sovereign and fully aware of how capable we are of being unloving towards him. This God, looks down and is powerful enough to handle anything and everything we throw his way. He may chose not to act, not because he is powerless to, but for reasons we don't know and can't really explain. With the free will he gave you, you can chose to point an accusatory finger at him, and label him as cold, distant and heartless, a God who is indifferent to our suffering and injustice desiring to punish those who reject him with an eternity in hell.
Conversely, like me, you may also wonder; why did this God create us if he didn't need us in the first place and why does he still commit to love us even when in ourselves we possess absolutely nothing to endear us to him? Why does he still commit to love us, when we forget him time and time again? Why does he continue to be patient with us like Peter inferred in 2 Peter 3:8-9. Despite our numerous shortcomings, how do verses like Ezekiel 18: 23 stand true, which reads, "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"
My take home, from all this, is that despite the pandemonium going around, the manner which God created us, has me convinced that he is in control. For some divine reason, he is permitting the pandemonium to happen. I won't claim to know why. What I will claim, is that he got this. Brexit, Syria, Donald Trump, he got this. He's seated on his throne, in abundant in control, to which you can keep calm, trust him and say, "He got this."
