Last week I read a social media post where the woman who wrote it declared she was not a child of God and not subject to Him in any way. She said she could do what she wanted and expressed her views with colorful language.
This made me both sad and disgusted, sad because she didn’t have a love relationship with her Creator, and disgusted that she had no regard for God except to curse Him and boast of her independence from Him. Doesn’t she know Paul’s words to the unsaved people of Athens that they should “seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ “ (Acts 17:27–28)
No one can draw another breath apart from the will of God. As for being subject to Him, Charnock writes this: “He can make a man of not willing, willing; the wills of all men are in his hand; i. e. under the power of his scepter, to retain or let go upon this or that errand, to bend this or that way; as water is carried by pipes to what house or place the owner of it is pleased to order and backed it up with:
The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord, he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21:1)Years ago, before my hubby knew Jesus as his Savior and Lord, he asked me to bend the truth to a supplier so we could save some money. I didn’t want to do that, so I asked God to help me with the right response. He surprised me by somehow changing my husband’s mind. That, and countless other examples demonstrate His power to me and in the world.
This is an historical reality, the reason why Christians pray big prayers. It is because our BIG God can do whatever He wants done.
An OT story is just brief but shows how the Lord thinks about human needs. Baruch was a secretary for Jeremiah. He knew God’s words about the enemy coming in to take His people into captivity and this man was upset about the threat. This is what God did:
The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of ß the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: You said, ‘Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’ Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.” (Jeremiah 45:1–5)Sometimes I hear Christians moan because of current threats to our safety and well-being. Sometimes I do it too. I need to remember that God is still able to turn the hearts of kings. I may wonder why some of them are bent on destruction or other sinful goals despite our prayers, yet God takes care of those who obey Him and He uses catastrophe to discipline those who do not listen or do what He says. Jeremiah makes that clear. The experiences of my life also make it clear.
PRAY: Lord Jesus, You know what You are doing. I trust You even as I fear the direction the world seems to be going. At times, I feel as if You are saying: ‘You want to run your own lives? Let’s see how that works out for you.’ At the same time, You are bringing many to Jesus, stories that seldom make the news but stories that began with You going to the fearful and giving them new life in Christ as a prize, even as those fearful events do not cease. You can change hearts, and for that I am both excited and grateful.
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