What came to my mind was from a prayer Paul shares with the people of Colosse in Colossians 1:9, "So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding"
As I think of that verse, I look to the context in which this book is written. The book of Colossians was originally a letter that Paul wrote to the people of Colosse (which is modern-day Turkey) was written for encouragement and instruction. Paul had heard of a tiny church that existed because of its faith. The problem, though, was that this church was struggling with being steadfast in faith and being tolerant of the worldly beliefs that existed in this time period.The book of Colossians focuses on the supremacy of God: God is above all things, all people, and all knowledge. Why? The culture focused on beliefs that come from within people. Beliefs that dwell on inward praise. "Finding the truth inside of yourself", meditation, human reason and making sense of the world. These were common topics of that day.
That doesn't sound much different than today's world. In fact just the other day I was reading about the creation of a new religion called "Chrislam" or the combining of Islam and Christianity. In this religion both the Bible and the Qur'an are held as holy texts, people mentioned are honored as prophets, and the calling out to either "Allah" or "God" is accepted. For someone to accept two completely contradictory texts as holy seems that an individual has a fight of what to believe. He can't decide so he just tolerates it all.
Creations of religions like Chrislam happen when people look to their own knowledge to understand or explain God. In fact, the story I shared about the woman and the baby in the carriage relates to this too. When I look at this story with the knowledge I have of the world, I blame the man for not saving the baby too. I am bothered that he didn't save the baby too, but he isn't the original issue. The original issue (also compared to the concept of original sin) is that the woman wasn't watching her baby close enough. And sometimes the will of God cannot be explained. Not with human reason.
Why trust the will of God when it doesn't make sense to us? Because God is sovereign.
Sovereignty, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:
1. obsolete: supreme excellence or an example of it
2. a: supreme power especially over a body politic
b: freedom from external control
c: controlling influence
Sovereignty is supreme power and the controlling influence.
In Biblical tearms, sovereignty of God means that "all things are under God's rule and control, and that nothing happens without his direction or permission. God works not just some things but all things according to the counsel of His own will...The sovereignty of God is not merely that God has the power and right to govern all things, but that He does so, always without exception. In other words, God is not merely sovereign de jure (in principle), but sovereign de facto (in practice)". (A.W. Pink)
God owes nothing to us. He owes nothing to the woman who was not watching her child close enough. I don't have an answer in my own knowledge to why it would be in God's will to not reach out a finger to save this baby's life. I have no answer as to why God could allow "bad things to happen to good people", but I have faith that God sees the bigger picture that I do not.
And if God sees that bigger picture that I do not then clearly I can't find any kind of god within myself, as was a common belief in the time Paul wrote his letter to Colossians and is still a common belief today. If I found a god within myself, it should be completely holy, without ignorance or fault. I shouldn't have to "discover" it. It should just be and my mind should be able to completely understand it. But it doesn't. My mind searches for truth. My mind yearns to fulfill the void that is present if I deny that God is truth and that God is just. Every part of me yearns to be a part of something greater than myself. If this desire drives me, then how could goodness come from inside of me?
If god existed within ourselves then how come solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments? Because we have a void on our own. Just think, in tragedy why is it that people turn to prayer or turn to God for help? It is in tragedy that people feel their weakness and they know they can not look within themselves.
My mom would always tell me that when she struggled with faith she would say "Lord I believe, but help my disbelief". In the same sense, I have to pray for spiritual understanding. I have to ask for help. I have to ask God to show me the unity of His heart when I don't understand the bad things happening around me.
If God is sovereign, then I need help understanding Him. The person who told me the baby carriage story really despises this line. He says "then your faith makes no sense. If you look at any religion, faith comes in to play when human wisdom falls short. And faith believes some of the most ridiculous of things". The only thing I can say to that is it just depends what your faith is in. Every single person has faith in something. It could be in material things (which will not last). It could be in yourself (who falls short and decays). Or it can be in truth.
When I lived in intercity Chicago, my youth pastor Tony always put it this way. "You can have this great faith and stand on little ice. Or you can have little faith on much ice. What matters is not your human reason or confidence. What matters is the object of your faith"
"You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred — like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens." (C.S. Lewis)
Why do I believe God's sovereignty is truth and the instrument through which I see God as my whole self? Because His Word is infallible. Give me one other set of 60 books, written over a thousand years, by numerous authors, that is as consistent and alive as the Bible.
I believe in this truth because the truth in the Bible is relatively simple. Christian standards are basic. (Don't steal, Don't lie, Love your neighbors as yourself) It is the carrying out of these truths that takes commitment and dedication. I believe in these truth and commit myself to them because I believe God is sovereign. As C.S. Lewis once said:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
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