Quote of the Day

Many times in my life God has asked me to wait when I wanted to move forward.  He has kept me in the dark when I asked for light.  I like to see progress.  I look for evidence that God is at least doing something. If the Shepherd leads us beside still waters when we were hoping for whitewater excitement, it is hard to believe that anything vital is taking place.  God is silent.   The house is silent.  The phone doesn't ring.  The mailbox is empty.  The stillness is hard to bear - and God knows that.  He knows our frame and remembers that we are made of dust….Of course for most of us this test of waiting does not take place in a silent and empty house, but in the course of regular work and appointments and taxpaying and grocery buying and trying to have the car fixed and get the storm windows up; daily decisions have to go on being made, responsibilities fulfilled families provided for, employers satisfied.  Can we accept patience-taxing ordinary things alongside the four-alarm fires of our lives?................

The longer I live, the more fully I am convinced that the Lord is in charge of everything on this complicated Earth and that nothing happens without His permission.  It's one of the great advantages of old age to be so completely sure of that.  God almighty is sovereign.  He is the One who is paramount, autonomous, unlimited, supreme…the absolute ruler of everything.

It seems to me that our modern church life, with its emphasis on cozy friendship with God, has deprived us somewhat of an awe-filled appreciation for His sovereignty.  It's not that we take issue with it, exactly.  We recognize His hand at work at startling or spectacular moments.  We extol His power to save when He has just protected us from a car accident, we marvel at His glory when we visit the Grand Canon, and we remember the mystery of His ways when somebody dies.  However, as we plod through the ordinary middle ground of our lives, the long distances between the punctuation marks of exultation and desolation, we fail to appreciate God's sovereignty.  We find it particularly hard to comprehend, much less believe, that a good God could still be in charge when our ordinary life is a relentless string of difficulties or when disasters strike.

He is "Most High over the earth" (Psalm 83:18), He is most high over our ordinary muddles and He is most high over what may seem to be catastrophes.  He is most high over international affairs…and all the human squabbles that have ever cropped up.  He is in charge of destruction and He is in charge off salvation.

 

Elisabeth Elliot