God is sovereign. It’s one of the most comforting and most fearful aspects of our faith.
It’s comforting for us to realize God’s will is going to get done, whether we succeed or fail. On the other hand, it’s discomforting to think that we can do everything we want or think we have to do, and we still might not get the results we want.
For example, you can pray for years for a person to get saved and present the Good News perfectly, and they can still reject it. Or, more to the point, you can laugh at the devil until you look like a fool and quote Scripture about healing until you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day you might end up still as much in pain as you were before.
It’s often at those moments that we say, “Well, God is sovereign.”
I need to warn us here, though. As important as it is not to blame ourselves, it is perhaps even more important not to blame God for our continuing suffering. And yes, we can comfort ourselves in the midst of suffering in the sovereignty of God without putting guilt on Him. Here is how:
God is sovereign… in that He has made provision to heal everybody. Look at the work of Jesus on the cross. Was He simply taking on Himself the moral sins of the world, or was He also taking on himself the emotional suffering and physical pain of every disease? I believe, in God’s great act of divine accounting, every sin and every suffering was paid for in full, so now there is nothing hindering the kingdom of God from coming to the earth through the believing saint.
God is sovereign… in the way in which He heals. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect. Jesus rarely healed the same way twice. In the Gospels, He is recorded as healing with His word, with His hands, with His spit, with His cloak, and more. He never turned a single person down who came to Him for healing. He offers to everyone who is weary, and that includes me!
I do not know what method God has chosen to heal me. I feel like I’ve been given strong clues at certain times. But the fact is, the story remains yet to be written. I know that when it is finished, it will not just bring glory to God, but it will also unveil the nature of God and teach people about who He is and the way He works. This is very exciting to me.
Matthew 11:28-30 HCSB
Come to Me… and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
I don’t have control over what comes against me today, but I know that Jesus is bearing the Lion-share of the burden. He offers me grace and His presence, rest and hope for a new day. All that He asks for is my obedience, most of which is simply deciding to trust Him and not what my sensory input tells me.
At the end of the day, I’m not even remotely tempted to fear that I will never be healed. I know that that will come to pass because God has told me. What God has not told me is when exactly that will happen. Sometimes I’m tempted to fear that it will be a long time, but it might not happen until I reach the gates of heaven. Even then, the commands of Jesus corral me back into the safe place of trusting God, for Jesus said, “take therefore no thought for the Morrow, for the Morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” (Mt 6:34 KJV). Take no thought…
Jesus only commands me to handle today, through his grace.
That is something I think I can manage.
As for the future… God is sovereign.