Hope in Our Crazy World - Pt 2

The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:1-2 ESV).

For the Christian, there should be an overwhelming and pervasive sense of well being and peace, no matter what goes on in our world. Apart from any other people we should be able to have hope. There are many reasons for that; however, I have chosen four to explore over the next few days that I believe will strengthen you in whatever circumstance you may find yourself at the moment. The first is God is sovereign. Over the chaos of our world, God will always reign Sovereign. Our reading today declares this truth clearly: The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will (v. 1). As powerful as that “stream” may appear, it still must flow in the path God has chosen for it. God is writing the story, even the story of our world's leaders (cf. Daniel 2:21; Romans 13:1). God Sovereignty won't always make sense to us, but the truth of God's sovereignty should serve to remind us the world will never spin out of God's control. God is not surprised by the circumstances of our life not because he knows the wickedness of our world; nor because of the depth of sin and depravity of humanity. Those things are certainly true and he is aware of them. He is not surprised by them because of his omniscience, though he does know everything past, present, and to come. He is not surprised because he directs all of it while working it together for our good (cf. Romans 8:28). He is in control. He’s got this, whatever your “this” might be. When life goes sideways, it’s important to remind ourselves that God is good and in control, even when His presence doesn’t feel close at every moment. In fact, there is normalcy to this feeling within the Christian experience. Job felt that no matter what direction he looked, God seemed absent (Job 23:8-9). Naomi changed her name to Bitter in a despairing response to the death of her family and livelihood that were permitted by the “Almighty” (cf. Ruth 1:20-21). Yet in every story we can always find divine hope running alongside the despair. God’s sovereignty fuels hope because we can rest in the knowledge that He is not overwhelmed by brokenness, but has absolute authority over it (cf. Colossians 1:17). Because He is a personal God who is good, we can trust His promise to work all things together for our individual good and His ultimate glory.