Did you ever wonder why things are the way they are in your life? I know I have wondered it for mine. I think back to when I was just ready to graduate from high school and my "whole life" ahead of me. Such dreams, such hopes. And here I am today, over thirty years later with most of my life behind me now. There are some things I wish I had never gone through, but yet they happened any way.
If it were not for the truth contained in the above verse, I often could feel sad by the way some things have turned out, by the way things seem to appear in my life. But God is sovereign, and He has a purpose beyond mine. In that I can rejoice. Before I ever was conceived, God had my whole life known before Him. He knew all the things that would happen, and yet He allowed them for a reason.
Another verse of great comfort is II Corinthians 2:14: "Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place." Now how does God do that? How could He possibly lead me in triumph in everything? Only one way, if I keep trusting Him that He knows everything that is going on in my life and is working it for my absolute good.
Life is tough, but God is always there. He knows all things that will happen to us in the future, and desires to work them for our ultimate good. When I know that God is sovereign over every little detail of my life, then my anxious heart can find rest in Him. He knows me, He knows all about me. What peace I can gain from that thought. He is not just sitting up there on a throne, waiting for me to make a mistake so He can beat me over the head somehow. No, I read about Jesus doing the very opposite for me:
In the book of Hebrews, chapter 7, Kenneth Wuest translates verse 25 this way: "He is able also to be saving completely and forever those who come to God through Him, being always alive for the purpose of continually making intercession for them."
That doesn't sound like a God ready to "get me" but a God of compassion, a God who knows everything about me and yet He loves me somehow. David wrote in Psalm 139:1-6:
1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
3 You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
If this is really true, then I do not need to be afraid of hiding anything from God. Indeed I cannot hide anything from Him. He knew all of my life and every thought I would think, before I even existed. All He wants me to do is trust Him, that He is working things for the good, that He will take care of every detail of my life. He is ever concerned, ever involved, ever caring in my life.
In His Word, God proves He is ever concerned in every trial:
Psalm 46
1 God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3 Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its swelling.
7 The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
In His Word, God proves He is ever involved with all the details of our life:
Psa 71:5-6
For You are my hope, O Lord GOD;
You are my trust from my youth.
By You I have been upheld from birth;
You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb.
My praise shall be continually of You.
Finally, in His Word, God proves He is ever caring of all our needs and burdens:
I Peter 5
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
In fact, He cares for me because I am in His Son, and He loves me with the very same love that He has for His Son, for Jesus prayed for us in John 17, asking His Father:
"O holy Father, maintain a watchful care over them in Your name, which You have given Me, in order that they may be one even as we." (John 17:11, Wuest translation)
"And I made known to them Your name, and will make it known, in order that the love with which You loved Me might be in them and I might be in them." (John 17:25, Wuest transl.)
Again, in the epistle of I John chapter 3, verses 1 and 2 are translated by Kenneth Wuest like this:
"Behold, what exotic (foreign to the human heart) love the Father has permanently bestowed upon us, to the end that we may be named children (born-ones, bairns) of God. And we are. On this account, the world does not have an experiential knowledge of us, because it does not have an experiential knowledge of Him. Divinely loved ones, now born ones of God we are. And not yet has it been made visible what we shall be. We know absolutely that whenever it is made visible, like ones to Him shall we be, because we shall see Him as He is."
These are just a few verses that prove that God knows all about us and our situations and is sovereign over every detail. He has done everything He possibly could to give us a sense of security and love, in spite of whatever is going on around us. Because of this, we can thank Him for all things, and when we do, it lifts us above our problems to His glorious throne, the blessed place of our sanctuary, both now and forever.
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