Readings for today: Psalms 108-109
“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer me! God has promised in his holiness: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem and portion out the Valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet, Judah my scepter. Moab is my washbasin; upon Edom I cast my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.” (Psalm 108:5-9)
Today’s reading reminds us of God’s sovereignty. God reigns over all the earth. Over all human affairs. Over all the nations. Over all the princes and kings and presidents and prime ministers. God reigns over all of nature. His throne sits high above the heavens. The earth remains his footstool. God exalts Himself over creation and there is nothing that escapes His notice. Nothing operates outside His sovereign will. Nothing catches Him by surprise. Nothing lies outside His power and authority.
Yes, that includes viral pandemics. Wars and regional conflict. Just and unjust governments alike. Corrupt politicians and those who hold fast to their integrity. Rich and poor. Educated and uneducated. Every tribe. Every tongue. Every nation. All exist under His sovereign hand. If this is true, it creates the ultimate conundrum. If God is sovereign, how can He be good? There is just too much evil in the world. Too much suffering. Too much pain. Too much death. If God truly is sovereign, He must not care. He must not be good. He must be arbitrary and capricious. Cold and distant. Disengaged and uninvolved. Or…perhaps He is good but just not sovereign? Perhaps He’s all-loving and all-gracious and all-compassionate but simply not powerful enough to confront the forces of darkness that afflict our world? Perhaps this is why plagues run amok. Wars never seem to cease. The most corrupt and power-hungry politicians seem to win. The gap between rich and poor gets wider. The social divisions only become more pronounced. These truths are difficult to hold together in our finite, human minds. How God be both sovereign and good when we look at the state of the world He supposedly rules?
It’s a thoroughly modern problem. David, obviously, didn’t have such issues. He had no problems holding in tension in his own heart and mind the sovereignty and goodness of God and the brokenness of his world. He fundamentally believed in the Biblical story. The good and sovereign God had created a good and perfect world. Into that good and perfect world, God put a good and perfect creature made in His own divine image. The charge to that creature was to care for and nurture and act as God’s agent in that good and perfect world to help it become fruitful and beautiful and lovely as God originally planned. However, the good and perfect creature grew proud. It disobeyed. It stretched out its hand in an effort to be like God. And the good and perfect world fell into ruin. Sin and death now reigned. But the good and sovereign God’s plan remained the same. He would work in and through the creature made in His image to restore the world to it’s pre-Fall condition. Thus, Adam’s call came to Noah. Noah’s call came to Abraham. Abraham’s call came to Moses. Moses’ call came to David. David’s call would eventually come to a man named Jesus. God Himself re-imaging Himself into the broken world He still loves. The good and sovereign God refusing to let go of all He had made. Through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the power of sin and death was broken. The forces of evil defeated. And what we are experiencing today is simply the aftershocks of that great victory that will one day find completion when the good and sovereign God returns to make all things new.
Until that day comes, we walk by faith. We hold fast to our belief that God is good. He is holy. He is pure. He is righteous. And we hold fast to our belief that God is sovereign. All-powerful. Almighty. Ruler of the heavens and the earth. And we trust He knows what He’s doing. We trust He sees things we cannot see. We trust He knows things we cannot know. And He is at work. The good and sovereign God has not abandoned His world to its fate. He is with us. He is near us. He is for us. And His promise is that He will bring to completion the good work He began.
Readings for tomorrow: 1 Chronicles 23-26