UNITED STATES
A WING AND A PRAYER
Carlin Lawrence carlin@agairupdate.com
God’s Sovereignty In Our Life
There are many things in our life that we have no control over.
B 34 | agairupdate.com
The saying, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” –William Ernest Henley; isn’t a realistic view of our life. There are many things in our life that we have no control over. God sovereignly controls everything in His universe. Nothing happens within God’s universe that God hasn’t allowed to happen. God’s purposes for our life are not always known by us, because they’re His eternal purposes. God always has our eternal welfare in view! We cannot understand many of God’s eternal purposes and plans for our life because we cannot see or understand the future. “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps…Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Proverbs 16:9, 19:21). When we don’t like what’s happening to us, we often say, “Why has God allowed these things to happen in my life?” But it’s because we cannot see the eternal plan that God is working out in our life. We’re very conscious of our present circumstances, and most of the time we’re living according to our feelings and emotions, which can lead us down the wrong path. God’s longsuffering, mercy and kindness allows humans to rebel against Him, but it’s also true that God doesn’t have to allow humans to resist His will. God could demand that we follow His will and force us to obey Him. He could say, “That’s the way it is, and if you don’t like it, poof, you are history.” God will allow us to make our own choices which can be a mistake when it comes to following God’s will for our life. “God is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). “The Lord has established His throne in
the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all… Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 103:19, 135:6). We have no right to challenge God, because He is a good, gracious and merciful God, and whatever God does is right. In the few short years that we’ve been on planet earth, which one of us can say that? It’s not wise to challenge God’s rule of everything in His universe. “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning…My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10). God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to build the Babylonian Empire, but he became prideful and God warned him about his pride in a dream. For a year Nebuchadnezzar walked carefully, but then he said, “This is the great Babylon, which I have built!” Nebuchadnezzar didn’t consider that it was God that allowed him rule. God took his sanity from him and he lived with the animals and ate the grass of the field like the cattle. After seven seasons God returned Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity to him, and Nebuchadnezzar wrote, “All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:35). “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (Corinthians 4:7). Everything a person has, in one way or another, was given to him or her! You didn’t choose your DNA, the time or place of your birth, your
