Monday, November 14, 2016
522 - Controlling Interest
Spirituality Column No. 522
November 15, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Controlling Interest
By Bob Walters
“God is in control.”
How many
times have you heard this uttered through a prayerful but nonetheless held
breath? It is a thoroughly Christian response to
tough times, surprising circumstances, incomprehensible challenges or recently
and with undue panic, the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the
United States.
But while
everyone else is discussing the election, I want to discuss “God is in
control.”
Indeed He is. God hung the
stars, set the heavens in motion and is the Creator and judge of all
things. Yet considering our wide-ranging
human freedom designed and ordained by God, one has to admit that we have
plenty of control of our own. The
truth of saying “God is in control” may be more defined by its admonishment to
trust God than merely a prayerful surrender to the will of God.
God’s will,
you see, is for Him to be glorified; and God is glorified when our free will is
entrusted in love, by us, to Jesus Christ. We mustn’t simply hand-off our “light and
momentary” troubles to God to solve them, but to truly trust God in all
circumstances, especially awful circumstances that can overcome faith.
The Apostle
Paul was lashed, stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, jailed, ridiculed and more than
once left for dead. Yet that meant
nothing to Paul compared with the glory of God that is in Christ (2 Corinthians
11:23-29). Christians are pressed,
perplexed, persecuted and struck down (2 Corinthians 4:8-10, 17), yet must fix
our eyes not on what is seen and temporary, but on what is unseen and
eternal. Paul thus describes the eternal
glory of God that outweighs all human experience, good or bad.
Never
forget, human experience is something of which we are in control because God
designed it that way. God’s glory
requires that we be entirely free, challenged greatly and yet still find our
first love in Jesus Christ. Do we “pray continually”? (1 Thessalonians
5:17) That’s code for keeping God ever
close.
What if we don’t keep God close? Well, Adam and Eve listened to Satan instead
of God in the Garden, creating endless trouble.
Conversely, Jesus answered Satan with God’s word in the desert,
harkening eternal salvation. That
comparison is a tad uneven given Adam and Eve (i.e. humanity) were merely God’s
image while Jesus is God incarnate. But
the lesson is that when we are challenged, we mustn’t just assume “God takes
control.” He can, certainly, but God liberally
lets us figure things out for ourselves.
What God is wondering is, do our faith and love survive?
Our ultimate
test is not in merely and reflexively looking to God for solutions, but whether
in tribulation or triumph we humbly and always
trust Jesus Christ with our entire life and for all strength, endurance,
perseverance, peace and most importantly, love.
God, I believe, is always as close
as we allow Him to be. We can control
that.
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