Reason #709

Sovereign in the mountain air
Sovereign on the ocean floor
With me in the calm
With me in the storm

Sovereign in my greatest joy
Sovereign in my deepest cry
With me in the dark
With me at the dawn

In your everlasting arms
All the pieces of my life
From beginning to the end
I can trust you

In your never failing love
You work everything for good
God whatever comes my way
I will trust you

Aaron and I talked about God's sovereignty last night. It's too much to comprehend. Too much to wrap our minds around. The fact that God knows every detail of our lives, knows all the twists and turns and every decision we're going to make, yet He still give us free will. He allows us to make our own decisions, but He already has a plan. That's the thing, that's what makes it so hard to understand. But as we tried to figure this concept out, I thought about what sovereignty meant. Supreme. Above all, over all. Highest authority.

So the question is how do we have free will and God's will? If we're doing God's will, is that free will? Gets confusing. The thing is, we have the free will to choose God's will. And even if it is God's will, we still have choices. We can choose to be obedient to His will, or we can choose to follow our own. Even though God knows what choice we'll make, He still gives us the options. His ways are higher, that's why I can't figure this stuff out.

But I thought about my own life and how God's sovereignty has played into it. I thought about how God's will always prevails. Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." I just have to praise God for that. Because the truth is, although I've always had a plan, it hasn't been the best one. And sometimes we find ourselves at the end of our broken plans asking God "why?" Why didn't you stop me? Why didn't you intervene and keep me from making that decision? Why did you let me do that? But really, it was your choice. God never makes us do one thing or the other. Sure, He knew what you were going to do, and if you think about it, it only makes sense that He let you. After all, no one likes being told what to do. We all want options and we all want to make our own choices, and so God is respectful of that. God doesn't force His will upon our lives, and He never pushes us in a direction we don't want to go. Yet, in those moments of heartache, we find ourselves wishing He would have done that. Wishing He would have intervened and stopped us, but maybe the problem was that we were practicing too much of our free will over God's will.

This has happened to me. And I thought about how even in my brokenness, at the end of my ruined plan, God was still sovereign. He was still supreme and above all. And because of His sovereignty, because He is in all, over all, and through all, He could work those things out for good. Because of His sovereignty God was not limited to what He could do or how He could act. There were no guidelines to what He was capable of because there is nothing He is incapable of. And when we ask for God's will to prevail in our lives, when we finally lay down our own selfish free will to follow His, we can expect that that is exactly what will happen.

You see, God has had a plan for me all along. In His sovereignty, He has always known the direction I would take. And so, being the gentleman He is, God allowed me to choose. He also convicted my heart, threw in some road blocks, and took away my peace in an attempt to get my attention, but He still allowed me to choose. God knew the plan all along. God knew where I was headed, and He stayed with me. God's plan prevailed. In the most devastating way, and then in the most unexpected way, God's plan prevailed. Because this was His will all along. One way or another I was going to get here. I could do it the hard way through trials and heartache, or I could do it the easy way and be obedient. Either way, God's plan would take precedence over mine, and I am so grateful that it did.

And so I'm not going to try and figure it out. I don't know how it works, and I don't always know how He works. But I am thankful for His sovereignty. I am thankful that He is always supreme. And I am thankful that because of that, we can always trust Him no matter what comes our way. In the end, God always works it out, sometimes He just has to take us down a different path to get us there.

#709 - Because He is supreme.

"Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere." - 1 Corinthians 15:28