God's sovereignty is
no longer a comforting concept to me. I do still believe that God is
sovereign, but I no longer find that a comforting notion, nor something that is helpful to reflect on when I need comfort.
I suspect that in
the past, when I thought that I was trusting in God's sovereignty I
was often conflating it with other things. (Once when I told a
friend that I was trusting in God for something she challenged me,
“Really? Or are you just in denial?”) Growing up in a middle class family in North America, I have a baseline of
trust in a social structure and infrastructure, and trust that in any
time of trial that I or my loved ones would at least receive the best
medical care possible or that insurance would cover part of any loss
of property. But now I have lived in places where it appears that
God has often chosen not to intervene, even when families and
sometimes entire communities or swaths of a country have lost
everything from a storm – and where losing everything means that
now their children won't go to school or that they and their children
may even die (from the storm itself or from its economic sequelae).
There are so many countries where people die every day from diseases
that are easily preventable or treatable in other places. And where
the survivors still put their trust and hope in God. I do find hope
for the distant future in the concept of God's sovereignty: I
believe that Jesus will return to make all things right, and God will
wipe every tear from our eyes. But in the meantime lovely people
suffer, go hungry, and die in the details.
I get frustrated
when I hear the concept of God's sovereignty used to explain things
that I think are due to economic/geographic happenstance, or even the
results of long-term abuse of power. I still believe that all good
things come from God, and I thank God when good things happen. But
if God's sovereignty is directly involved when you get the job you
wanted when you live in a place with 6% unemployment, what does that
mean for my friend who cannot find any job in a place with 80%
unemployment? And what does it mean when the poverty and lack of
jobs where my friend lives has a direct historical relationship to
the plenty where you live?
I also sometimes get
angry when I hear people cite God's sovereignty when it appears that
it is being used to justify acceptance of (or even outright collusion
with) evil systems that are designed to benefit some and worsen the
lives of others. I believe that we are called to live now the way we
will live in the future, and that we are to be a part of setting up
systems that bring justice and peace for our families, neighbors, and
communities – both as a foretaste of what is to come and also
because people's lives (even now!) are important. So if new laws or
repeals of old protections cause my neighbor to suffer injustice or
want, this does not seem like a time for us to take comfort in God's
sovereignty – this seems like a time for us to storm the gates of
hell.
So, I do not
currently find the idea of God's sovereignty comforting (although again, I do still believe that God is sovereign). What does
give me comfort and hope in trial? The fact that if our neighbor is
suffering, we have the privilege of suffering alongside, and that we
can comfort others with the same comfort that we have received. The
fact that even though there is much evil in this world, God can give
us the strength to resist evil, to work for good, to maintain love in
our hearts. The fact that we know that God is on the side of love,
justice, and hope. The fact that God is always present – rejoicing
and moving toward the good, and weeping with us in the bad.
