God will make it right . . .

 

 

READ: Psalm 6-10

My husband watches the news. I’m having trouble with that because of the horrors. However, today’s reading helps me get a better perspective. These words from God’s Word, most of them written as prayers, give me encouragement because they focus on the power of God rather than the foolish evil news-makers that trouble my heart:

Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous— you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. (Psalm 7:9–11)

Since God feels indignation about evil, why doesn’t He stop those things that wicked people do? Perhaps because He gave mankind dominion over many things making us responsible for what we are doing . . .

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:3–9)

God is sovereign and He will eventually judge what we do under the authority He has given us . . .

But the Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness. The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. (Psalm 9:7–10)

Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before you! Put them in fear, O Lord! Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah (Psalm 9:19–20)

The psalmist asks the question that many of God’s people are asking, perhaps not aloud, but this enters our minds: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”

Yet the same psalmist answers his own question with this: “But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none. The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.” (Psalm 10:1; 14–18)

This is not referring to current events, but the sentiment is the same. Many in our world suffer affliction and God knows how to deal with any person who strikes terror into human hearts.

Yet there is another aspect to the evil that human beings do — God can use even the worst of it for good. Another book I am using in devotions is called “Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith” by Scotty Smith. The date he wrote it puts today on Easter weekend and part of today’s prayer says this:

As the sun rose on Saturday, no one could have possibly understood that the most undeserved death imaginable would yield the greatest return calculable. As you were nailed to the cross, the written code—God’s law, with all its regulations and requirements—was taken away from us, losing all its condemning power over us. As you drew your last breath, you were actually disarming the powers of darkness and triumphing over all authorities marshaled against the reign of God. No one yet grasped that your mortal punishment would bring our eternal peace, that your fatal wounding would secure our everlasting healing, and that your being crushed would lead to our being cherished by the thrice holy God. Though they had the Scriptures, they had no clue.

To this, I say AMEN. Today, we have no clue what You are doing in our world, particularly in Ukraine, but also in Africa and other places, but I know that You can produce the best from the worst and that You deeply care about the atrocities and abuse that we also do not understand.