Category: Current Trends

The Voice of Sanity

Published on by dpatrickcollins2 Comments

I am presently engaging in that dubious task called writing a novel. Now one might wonder how anyone can have the presence of mind to write a novel at a time like this, with — as one family member called it — “the chaos and uncertainty affecting us all” right now. Call me crazy, but I feel the very opposite.

I just keep thinking it is especially at a time like this that the world around us needs a clear voice of sanity, and that voice is (or at least should be) the church. For some of us, that is a voice to our friends and neighbors; for others, a voice on social media. For others, a voice in places of influence and leadership. For strange folks like me, it is a voice that requires hours of preparation in a writing closet. 

Now the uncertainty we feel, if we feel uncertain at all, is most likely the crumbling of the foundation we built on something other than Jesus, which I get. I have had many seasons where I saw foundations I did not even know I was standing on crumble before my very eyes. It is always a bit unsettling. But we do belong to a Kingdom that cannot be shaken. And Jesus always meets us in the those places. He is the foundation underneath the thing we were trusting in: He always catches us.

Hell fears the one who has nothing to lose and everything to gain. And I can think of no better definition for the church. Consider yourself then one who is not about to lose something, but who is about to gain something. And from that place of perfect security, the voice of Heaven will rise up within you and be heard.

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

Hope

Published on by dpatrickcollins3 Comments

Years ago, I found myself in a tight spot. I was in the seventh year of a failing business. Making matters worse, it was a business I felt God had led me to begin. But I now found myself struggling to pay my bills. Which, full disclosure, is an understatement. Truth was, I was up to my eyeballs in debt, about to lose my home, and already beginning proceedings to file for bankruptcy. I was receiving calls daily from my creditors who, like prophets predicting my doom, said that unless I paid up, bad things were going to happen to me. If there was ever an indicator that my world was about to come to an end, it was right there, in plain sight. Continue reading “Hope” →

Sovereignty and Evil

Published on by dpatrickcollinsLeave a comment

In our last two posts, we have been discussing God’s sovereignty — the fact that God is in complete control of His creation — and the two common difficulties we face. The first was understanding how God can be in complete control when we have free will, and the second was tragedy. Regarding tragedy, we explained God’s sovereign will never represents what He wants but rather what He intentionally allows.

But the idea that God allows, with intention (and this means He not only lets happen but orchestrates) every event in history and our lives carries with it a thorny implication: It means He is also orchestrating the tragic things that occur. Would that not mean God is the author of tragedy and (dare I say it?) even evil? Continue reading “Sovereignty and Evil” →

Sovereignty and Tragedy

Published on by dpatrickcollinsLeave a comment

In our last post, we discussed God’s sovereignty — the fact that God is in complete control of His creation — and how that relates to free will. Specifically, we addressed how it is possible that God can remain fully in control of His creation when we have free will. The answer is that God, unlike us, transcends His Creation much like a novelist transcends the novel. If we are thinking God cannot be fully in control of His creation in the face of free will, it is because we have made Him too small. Continue reading “Sovereignty and Tragedy” →

Sovereignty

Published on by dpatrickcollins8 Comments

I would first like to take time and thank InsanityBytes for hosting two of my recent posts with her own thoughts on the topic of being unpunishable. Feel free to visit. You may find our lively exchange in the comments section of interest.

Recently the topic of God’s sovereignty has hit my radar from two different sources. One is pastor Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church recently giving a prophetic word about us entering into a sovereign season. The other is pastor Bill Johnson discussing the recent tragic death of the two-year old Olive Heiligenthal, daughter of one of Bethel’s worship leaders, and his discomfort with the tendency of believers to label any tragic event “God’s sovereign will.”

Let’s define what we mean by God’s sovereignty. God’s sovereignty means that God exercises complete and total control over His creation. This means that all that happens in human history and in your life and mine reflects His sovereign will. That is: What takes place is ultimately what God orchestrated.

The definition of God’s sovereignty is relatively easy to understand. But what makes it difficult are two things: Free will and tragedy. Let’s first look at free will. Free will says I am an autonomous creature who has the power to make my own choices and exercise my own will. I am not, in other words, controlled by something or someone else: I control my own actions.

Free will makes God’s sovereignty problematic because to our finite minds, it would seem to the extent I am in control of my own actions, God is no longer in control of me — and therefore, not in control of His own creation. It just seems reasonable that there can only be one person in control. So what that would mean is we are either robots who have no free will, or God is not in control. At least that is what it would seem.

Free will makes God’s sovereignty problematic because to our finite minds, it would seem to the extent I am in control of my own actions, God is no longer in control of me — and therefore, not in control of His own creation.

What is ironic is that in the modern secular culture, there is a strong trend to believe we have no free will, not because of God, but because of nature. You would think of all places free will would be embraced would be in secular culture, where there is such a strong belief in our autonomy. But fate would have it that the very denial of God and the very insistence that the physical universe is all there is means that ultimately the chance interaction of matter, not us and not God, is what controls us. Of course, if we truly have no free will and what we call thought is no more than chance chemical interactions, then the very argument upon which such a belief is based is meaningless (a topic we have discussed before). This modern belief, therefore, is best understood as how far humanity will go in order to deny its own divine origins and the supernatural nature of reality, both of which lead to God. That at least is how I see it.

Whether because of God or matter, free will would seem to be incompatible with God’s sovereignty. However this is not what we see in Scripture. What we see is free will at the center of God’s relationship with humanity, from the Garden to the Cross and beyond. That is, the Bible makes clear we live in a world where humanity’s power to exercise free will not only exists but is the hinge upon which eternal and temporal consequences are determined.

And yet, simultaneously, we see God in control of it all. Pharaoh hardened his own heart, but God hardened it as well. A sparrow falls to the ground, but not outside the Father’s care. Humanity put Jesus to death, but God the Father gave His own Son. We chose Jesus, but in fact He chose us. We make our choices, but regardless of those choices, God is working all things for our good. Our decisions are paramount, but ultimately God is the one who decides.

It is important we have a good understanding of God’s sovereignty, because it meets us where we are at. Faith is what moves mountains, and our faith in God’s sovereignty is no different. Earlier this year, I found myself in a really hard place. I had been through a lot in a short period of time and I just crashed. I felt like I had lost it, and I did not know if I was going to regain it. But what kept me going was God, specifically the knowledge that He was at work, orchestrating things for my good. In the midst of this season, I rested in His goodness. He would get me through this. And He did. And He continues to. In each of our lives, God is working all things for our good. He is in control. He is carrying us. And thank God: We are not carrying ourselves.

It is important we have a good understanding of God’s sovereignty. Faith is what moves mountains, and our faith in God’s sovereignty is no different.

But how exactly does God’s sovereignty work? Vallotton describes God’s sovereignty as a suspension of free will, explaining that there are seasons where God just takes over. I believe there are such seasons where God exerts His power and authority. But I see God’s sovereignty a bit differently. I think God has never had a need to step in and take over because He has always been perfectly in control. And the exercise of our free will always happens in the context of His sovereign will. In other words, the exercise of our free will is what accomplishes God’s sovereign will. This is because God, being God, not only knows the ultimate outcome of our choices but actually orchestrates them. He is that in control of His creation.

One way of understanding how free will and God’s sovereignty works is to think of the relationship of characters in a novel to the novel writer. Within the novel, the characters obviously exercise free will. The novel writer does not need to interrupt the story and violate their will to get them to do what he or she wants. And yet, the novel writer knows the end from the beginning. Not only this, the novel writer is writing it: Every chapter, every scene, every sentence. So it is with God. And it is equally important for us to realize that just as it would be impossible for the characters in the novel to fully understand how the novelist does this, so it is for us to fully understand God’s sovereignty.

Here is a good place to introduce the other difficulty with God’s sovereignty, and that is tragedy. But for the sake of brevity, we will leave that to our next discussion. Be blessed, and rest in the knowledge God has you and is orchestrating everything — everything — according to His perfect will.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash