“O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.” (Psalm 131)
Sometimes, I have a hard time with the sovereignty of God.
Let me explain. I’m a Calvinist. Calvinism is, to me, something that you really can’t argue against from the word of God. Romans chapter 9 lays a forceful axe-blow to any attempt. I’m not a Calvinist because I want it to be true, or because I need it to be true, or because it satisfies any psychological or emotional demand of my heart. Quite the opposite. I know that there is comfort to be found in knowing that your relationship with God was meant to be, and that because it was meant to be you can trust that something even greater than your own unbelief is at work to save and redeem you. That should provide great comfort and rest to a believer, and it is for that purpose that the New Testament makes use of the doctrines of election and predestination. Maybe I’m not very spiritual, but there are times when I am much more troubled by these teachings of Scripture than I am comforted.
My fear is not that some people get to heaven and some don’t. My fear is not even that some people are chosen by God and some are not. My fear is that some people who want the love of God more than anything else will be turned away from it. My fear is that some of those who take hold of the Father-love of God, knowing that it is their only hope, will be disqualified because of some secret, arbitrary decision of God. These are the things that my mind worries over when I have questions about God. I am a child in desperate need of the Father. If I accomplish anything in my spiritual life, it will be because I have come to God as a broken and hungry person who deeply knew that only the love of the Father was able to redeem me, keep me safe, give me life, and show me the way to glory. And sometimes the sovereignty of God seems to cut against the security I’ve found instead of working towards it.
When we hear about the sovereignty of God, we are sometimes tempted to think of God as this post-traumatic Harvey Dent who delights in arbitrarily destroying or pardoning people as they cringe before Him. If we’re the wrong kind of “spiritual,” we’ll try accept that image of God without questioning in an effort to be good enough to win God’s favor. But the character of God as revealed in His word is not that of a cosmic Two-Face. He’s not on a power trip, He’s not trying to resolve any insecurities about His control of human events, and He has nothing to prove to Himself, to us, or to the angels. All that He does, He does in love towards those that He loves. And in order to form any kind of real attachment with God as our Father, we need to take this truth deeply into our hearts and souls.
Perhaps if I was a mature Christian, I wouldn’t worry about the sovereignty of God. Perhaps I would know, as I see more clearly in the light of day, that no-one is able to come to God and take hold of His Father-love by faith unless God has first awakened him from spiritual death and established that longing in his heart. Perhaps I would know that the offer of the Gospel is freely for all, that there is no need for me to know anything about the secret will of God, but only to answer honestly the question, “are you thirsty?” come to the living water, and drink my fill. “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out,” (John 6:37) Jesus says. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7). Peering into God’s secret will and knowing what He has chosen is not a precondition. That’s impossible for anyone. What is possible is to come the Father and take hold of His love. What is possible is to ask Him for redemption and adoption through the finished work of Jesus, and for the security of knowing that I belong to Him no matter what. The love of the Father is mine if I want it and that He will never say no to anyone who comes to Him in this way. That is His promise. But sometimes, like last night, I forget all of that. I get overwhelmed with things that are way over my head.
I’m preparing a teaching series on the subject of worship right now, which I will be sharing at a local young adults’ ministry. In the course of my preparations last night, I began pondering how to explain the sovereignty of God in the context of worship–how it is that we can be inspired to worship God by the truths of His sovereignty. And in part because of my prideful insistence on making sense of everything, and in part because of my compassion for people who I know struggle with the same questions–people I’ll be speaking to–I got a little out of my depth. At 10:30 last night my mind was racing. I said some very honest and very frightened things to God. And the passage of Scripture that He brought to mind was the one that I quoted at the beginning of this post.
Sometimes God is not just a Father. Sometimes He is exactly who I need Him to be: a mother who holds this little child on His lap, comforts me, reminds me what’s true, and doesn’t let me go until I’m ready to get up. That’s how I came to Him last night, and that’s who He was to me. His way isn’t just to settle me down, but to help me remember the things that I know are true so that I’m able to gain some strength and control over my own emotions. And this is what He spoke to me: “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat.” He reminded me that the wonder is not that He would make a “vessel of wrath” from the clay of human flesh, but that something so lost and depraved could be transformed into a vessel of mercy. He reminded me that He endures with great patience the “vessels of wrath,” that even in reprobation there is cost to Himself for the sake of those He loves. And today, I am not wavering in unbelief, but growing strong in faith. And I am beginning to understand how God’s sovereignty can provoke me to worship. Not as the cringing benefactor of a cosmic coin-flip, but as a desperately loved child of God. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and hell has no hallelujahs for His ears. There are no songs in the book of Psalms of tormented people adoring God for His justice. (Psalm 6:5, 30:9, 88:11, 115:9) But He delights in showing mercy to those He loves, and through His patience and His justice He makes it known to us who are being saved, so that we might rest and delight in His love.
Andrew Micah 