Trust that God’s in control even when we’re not

The worst part is the uncertainty.

Will the test come back confirming cancer? Will the layoffs involve me? Did I flunk the test, or somehow squeak by?

Uncertainty is a regular, yet unwanted, companion.

You’d think we would all get used to not knowing the future, because not a single one of us knows what’s around life’s corners. Still, uncertainty ushers in anxiety and its deeper ailments: worry, fear, doubt, insecurity.

Is there no cure?

Happily, there is. And our escape is not positive thinking, a better self-image or some mystic mental contortion to instill a charade of confidence.

The cure to flailing about in uncertain times is not within us at all; it is found in believing who God really is.

Do we really believe God is sovereign?

Our infinitely strong and wise God is in absolute control of the universe he created. That certainly includes the fragment of the universe that is home to my life and yours.

Isaiah describes God this way: “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.” (Isaiah 40:22 – NKJV)

In the book of Job, we read of awful circumstances in a godly man’s life – the death of his family, financial ruin, physical ailments. Like Job and his friends, we struggle to understand life’s tragedies and horrors, because we so often cannot see the larger picture.

God’s sovereignty means that nothing ever happens to me outside his control. He not only sees the big picture, he is the one painting it. And that control is not limited by my ability to understand it.

We can live with security and confidence, even in uncertain times, when we believe the truth about God: He is sovereign. He is control. He is writing the very future we sometimes fear or dread.

Do we really believe God is loving?

Without love, God’s sovereignty might make him seem a bit capricious. Is he just willy-nilly allowing random circumstances in our lives without regard to how they affect us or make us feel? Of course not.

Christian friend, don’t ever forget that God’s prevailing attitude toward you is love. He is not perpetually disappointed in you or always trying to punish you for mistakes.

God loves you. In fact, it was God’s love – not your merit – that provoked the sacrifice of his son on Calvary’s cross that you might be forgiven of sin and enjoy the certainty of eternal life:

“… this life comes to us from his Son. And so, if we have God’s Son, we have this life. But if we don’t have the Son, we don’t have this life. All of you have faith in the Son of God, and I have written to let you know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:11-13 – CEV)

Do we really believe God is eternal?

Because God is eternal, His plan for you and for me is an eternal plan. Our life on this unredeemed earth is a passing one. It’s a brief stay. And one day it will yield to life as our Creator intended it: total freedom from the curse of sin, and all the things that cause uncertainty.

Belief in God’s eternality caused the saints who went before us to live with confidence, assurance and faith, even in the face of death.

Toward the end of his life the Apostle Paul said, “If I live, it will be for Christ, and if I die, I will gain even more.” (Philippians 1:21 – CEV)

He is not expressing some odd death wish. He simply believed with all of his heart that even the thing we fear most in this life – death – doesn’t get the final word.

Are you traveling with uncertainty lately? Don’t pin your hope to an outcome, or the silly notion that “it will all work out OK.”

Instead, place your hope in the eternal God who loves you and is very much in control of his universe. Even the uncertain part you’re in.