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How can God possibly not be in control?

Think about the kings of old. They were in charge of the country, but not in control of every one of their subjects. They had the authority (by rule) and they delegated that authority to officers of the kingdom. Those could be directly under the king (like a high chancellor) or they could be far down the chain (like a sheriff). None of the underlings had authority unless it was given by the king.

And the king did not have direct control over every single aspect of his kingdom. That would be a recipe for disaster – can you imagine having a finger in every pie, so to speak, and being the ultimate judge of everything? Moses tried that. It wore him down to a frazzle. Finally his father-in-law, Jethro, recommended (Exodus 18:13-26) that Moses assign wise men to be leaders/judges over groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens of people. It worked well – it freed Moses to be the judge over only major items. He was able to be the leader God called him to be.

All right, I know what you’re thinking: God isn’t a man. He wouldn’t get frazzled.

Correct. But God has made a choice not to interfere with our free will. He doesn’t want His followers to be robots, but beloved children. He wants us in relationship, not blindly following a bunch of rules.

Even when we understand this concept, we still wrestle with so-called “Acts of God.” The tornadoes that tear up half of a town. The hurricane that blows safely back out to sea. The epidemic that destroys entire families.

Yeah. I know. I have trouble with all that, too. Sometimes it feels like God is being completely arbitrary. Like maybe He chooses who lives and who dies by flipping a coin.

But what if Satan actually has control over the earth? The Bible refers to God’s dwelling place as the third heaven and the second heaven as holding the sun, the stars, etc. (outer space). Earth’s atmosphere (inner space) is called the first heaven. It often does seem like the enemy controls our weather and other natural forces, but we still blame God for these disasters.

Do we ever blame God for the evil acts some people perpetrate? Murders, rapists, child abusers – is God in control of their actions?

Has the Church, the Body of Christ, learned to use the authority we’ve been given by Jesus to exert proper control over our own lives? Have we submitted everything we are to the control of God?

Wow! These are some heavy duty questions. And I don’t pretend to have all the answers.
What I would like to discuss later is some ideas why people do such awful things to each other and what we can do about it.

Who’s in control?

All illustrations courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net