I did not quite understand the true weight the article below held the first time I read it at the beginning of the year. Yes, I know full well what it is to suffer, how it is to endure suffering, how it is to go through severe acute, heart-wrenching trials—and to go through all that with the enduring faith that the knowledge of His sovereignty and grace provides. But then, the fact of the matter always seems to be that it is one thing to speak of these things apart from the experiences of suffering and another all together when you are in it. And at the moments when you are in the experience of suffering, of pain, of severe testing, it is at those moments that these truths become nothing short of awe-inspiring magnificence, nothing less than what we should expect from the arms of Almighty sovereign love.
A tribute to my brother Joel and his wife, Kaye.
In the middle of writing my column this month I deleted what I wrote and have started over because I just received word from one of my closest friends that his wife, pregnant with their long-awaited second child, might be experiencing a miscarriage. My heart is overwhelmed with sorrow not knowing what the future holds for them. As I write, my friend and his wife are on their way to the doctor’s office. Having experienced the miscarriage of our first child years ago, my wife and I can empathize with our friends. Those who have experienced the loss of a child not-yet-born know the fear and anxiety I’m speaking of. Words fail us as we try to express the pain of such loss. As a man, a friend, a pastor, I have few words of wisdom for him as he seeks to comfort his wife and as they both seek comfort from our sovereign Lord.
As believers, we don’t question God’s sovereignty — quite the opposite. We don’t worry because we have forgotten the most basic tenet of theology, namely, that God is God — sovereign. We worry knowing full well He is sovereign, yet in our self-absorbed kingdoms we often forget that it is an eternally gracious sovereignty toward those reconciled to Him through Christ.
As we live before the face of God each day with real reasons for real anxiety, we can rest assured that His sovereignty (not ours) — His control (not ours) — His faithfulness (not ours) — is our only real hope in this sad world. For that which He creates He sustains, that which He authors He perfects, and that which He begins He completes. And whether we are comfortably numb to our anxieties or fully aware of them, it is neither our acceptance, control, nor rationalization of them that will free us from our self-created, self-controlled, self-contained prisons of anxiety. We will only be free when we become as dependent on God as the birds of the air that our heavenly Father feeds and whose songs lift our eyes heavenward when we hear them sing, “Son of Adam, don’t worry for tomorrow, cast all your cares on Him, for if He cares for me, how much more does He care for you?”
—Burk Parsons, Uncontrollable Anxiety: HT
