God’s Sovereign Hand
As far back as I can remember, I remember believing God existed. As a child my father took me to church and dropped me off each Sunday, I came to understand God from the teachings in Sunday School, listening to the preacher and watching the folks who taught me about Him. While I wanted to believe all the things people taught me, I couldn’t reconcile those teachings with the experiences I faced in my life. Even after I became a Christian and was justified and sanctified, I struggled with the why of life.
I was nearly aborted, and only because of archaic means did it fail. (If my mother had succeeded I wouldn’t be writing this today.) Then my mother left my father, my two elder brothers and me when I was but 3 years old. I was raised by an abusive stepmother who had two sons (my step-brothers) who molested me before I was eleven-years-old. My 21-year-old brother died in front of me when I was seventeen years old. My first baby lived 23 hours and was buried before I got out of the hospital. I never got to hold him. My next two pregnancies ended in miscarriages. My mother never wanted to see me again after I met her when I was 30 years old.
My son was killed just under 3 years ago on Mother’s Day 2005. My husband just had open heart surgery for 5 bypasses after his heart attack on Mother’s Day of this year. He was left with congestive heart failure because one doctor thought all that was wrong with him in the intensive care unit was a pinched nerve so they waited too long to do the surgery which deadened the main part of his heart. (I wouldn’t think of suing.)
All these things are but appetizers of the main stuff that has happened in my life. And I am totally accepting of these things that have happened because God was, and is, in charge of it all.
I’ve forgiven every last person I know to forgive and love them with all the power my Lord gives me. I have absolutely no bitterness whatsoever toward them. God uses my history to light the pathway of my day and the days ahead with wisdom, discernment and forebearance.
My Father has proved His Word and His sufficiency in every way shape and form and continues to bless me beyond measure of anything I could possibly deserve. He can see what I cannot. I trust His wisdom and enjoy waiting upon Him to deliver me, provide for me and bring me home someday to spend an eternity with him and my sons, my babies, my loved ones and a few ornery Christian brothers and sisters with whom I wish I could get to know a bit better before having to walk the streets of gold.
As a child I thought God cared little or nothing about me. I saw Him similar to the Wizard of Oz. He was all-powerful, frightening and did not answer requests of children like me. I would lie awake at night and stare out my window at the stars and wonder where He really was and why if He really loved me as the Sunday School teachers had said, did He allow folks to treat me the way they treated me.
Today I think differently, of course. God is sovereign. He is sovereign over the pride-filled, the humble-hearted, the logical and illogical. He lets us go our own way. He gives us signs and sometimes even roadblocks. He seeks to move us in His sovereign purpose in all things. It is we who balk when He takes us on a detour from the place in which He’d intended. And sometimes that detour can take wandering in the wilderness for 40 years because we refuse to trust Him and obey His commands. Sometimes it can push the most deserving annointed leader into caves for ten years to avoid taking retribution against another of God’s annointed.
One sees himself as a crusader, another the chiefest of sinners. One is exiled; another imprisoned. One retaliates. One yields to the Lord and waits for Him to work things out His way. Others would destroy, rather than walk away when the opportunity is there to wipe out one’s adversary.
God is over all. He will not be mocked. He will be sovereign even if we cannot see it clearly or accept it unconditionally. I have come to my understanding and acceptance of God’s complete control in my life because the events of my life have shown me His hand over and over again. It is all in accordance to His Word. Job is my absolute favorite book in the Bible. I particularly appreciate God’s answers to Job. “Shall he who would find fault with the Almighty contend with Him? He who disputes God, let him answer it.” Job 40:2
I believe my life depicts the threads of God’s Sovereign Hand. He is Good. He is merciful. He is just. What I do not understand, I trust to Him. He has done far better with me than I did with me before I received Him into my life and was saved over thirty years ago.
How about you? Can you see God’s sovereign hand at work through your life? Do you see His hand today? selahV
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Great post, Harriette. (I can never figure out how many rs and ts to put in your name :))
God is indeed good even when it doesn’t appear that way. It’s incredibly hard to accept that when the “trash” of life hits us in the face, I agree. It’s easier to accept it when the rubble has cleared and we look back on it.
As Christians, we can learn from this – when witnessing to people who are still “in the trash”, it’s very important to remember that THEY are where WE once were, and coming up with a belief and trust in God that matches ours may be very difficult. Prosperity doctrine handles this by telling them that trusting God will make all their troubles go away, which is a terrible lie that many believe. (It’s also helpful if you’re just after “conversion” numbers to report to a visitation director…) The TRUTH says that God cares for you and abides with you even when the trash is there.
Mrs. V,
Even though my time in ministry thus far has been very limited compared to you and Mr. V, I have witnessed so much of what you have experienced with God’s people. The Wizard of Oz reference is the way many of God’s chidlren view His sovereignty–he is behind the “Curtain”, spinning the dials, turning the knobs, and flipping the switches.
When He “flips a switch” they just sit back and say, “Oh well, this must be God’s will for my life.” I think there is a desperate incongruity in what we perceive to be “God’s will” as opposed to His sovereignty, at least from a pastoral standpoint (maybe not so theologically).
I have found myself often on the other side of a sofa trying to explain the disparity and show how God’s will intersects with real life. A lot of times the congruity isn’t seen until much later but the peril of the present, that I must have an answer now, clouds our vision badly.
The eye on heaven that you have is a good lesson that each one of us could stand to learn, especially those of us in pastoral ministry. I am grieved by the testimonies that you have shared along the course of your life but looking back (hindsight is 20/20 after all), I see how they have cultivated a very beautiful and eternally useful lady in God’s kingdom. Many blessings in Christ!
Bernard: One R, two T’s with an E on the end. :) And it doesn’t matter, just use SelahV—it is simpler and I like it better anyway. My mother gave me my French-spelled name and it has been the bane of my existence ever since. Most folks never get it right and I’ve been called everything from Henrietta to Harieta and I cannot begin to tell you how many times my name has been misspelled or mispronounced. Glad we have blogland and monikers of our own choosing. :) As you can tell by Tony’s affectionate reference to me as “Mrs. V”, even monikers are in danger of being shortened.
Regarding the “trash” in our lives, I have come to liken it to how I separate my peelings that can be recycled in my compost pile and the refuse that must be tossed in the garbage and discarded. One can be used of God, the other needs to be forgotten and left behind—much like Paul’s instruction to lay aside every weight. Otherwise we gonna be stinking up the track as we run our race for the prize set before us.
I never cease to remember that I came from the compost pile and that God can use others as well as me to be part of His gardening efforts. And though at times I don’t like the heat I receive from the contact of fresh peelings, I can definitely relate to them as having been where they are in the present as God breaks down the components of their lives and mixes them with mine. Together we are in Christ…and part of that togetherness means a yielding of ourselves to Christ’s Spirit as He turns the pile, waters it to produce the richest of soil.
Thanks so much for your thoughts, Bernard. I do appreciate the reminder that the Truth is always present. selahV
Tony, living in the present with all the problems of life is indeed most difficult at times. I had tremendous difficulty with all this at one point. And many of the things I’ve cited in my post colored many relationships, tainted and distorted much of my perspective as I tried to co-exist with others before Christ—and indeed, even afterwards.
Oddly I found it hardest to deal with fellow Christians who treated one another with less than what God would have them to be treated than I did with accepting the “trash” that was dumped on me from folks in my past.
As I sought to follow the Lord, He has taken these life experiences and shown me how much He loved me, even though the world rejected me. And from that, I have learned obedience no matter what circumstances and a deeper appreciation of Christ’s sufferings at the hands of man. While my heartache and pain may appear to be rough, it is a pittance in comparison to others’ problems in life, and absolutely NOTHING compared to our Lord.
I think when we reach a point where we can see our sufferings and difficulties beneath the shadow of the Cross, our eyes can see more clearly the reason we have these experiences at all. Identifying with Christ should be our pleasure rather than our displeasure.
Hindsight adds great insight into foresight.
And that is what accepting God’s sovereign hand does for me. This world is but a temporary place. These sufferings are but a pin-prick compared to the glory I will enjoy forevermore with my Savior. grace be upon you and yours, Tony and abound. selahV
selah,
it’s hard for me to comprehend a person going thru what you did and remain sane. thanks for sharing this with us, even though it must have been hard to do. it helps me to see that whatever life throws at me, that the Lord can truly sustain me and help me to go thru it.
when i read what you wrote here…i thought…what a baby i am for being upset about the small problems i’ve faced in life.
God is good.
david
Mrs V,
Mrs V I have heard it said many times that God has prepared our lives from before we were born , and It is I know very true and our pain is often very hurtful ! This testimony is one of many that God uses to glorify His Kingdom ? Your writings have blessed me and many other lives ! It helps us to understand more what God is doing in our lives ? It helps us to find everlasting peace and molds us to want to be more like God wants us to be ? The Lord has been very gracious in changing my stubborn ways in the last 5 years and I look back all the time and say Thanks for guideing me ? I Thank you for sharing with us and I Thank God for creating a beautiful and gracious Lady like you to help Him guide us struggling sinners !
Blessings.
Ron.
Volfan, it’s hard for me to comprehend how I went through what I went through and remain sane, too. :) But it just goes to prove the power of God and the love He really has for us in light of all we encounter.
No problem anyone has is insignificant to that individual, Volfie. Your difficulties are just as relevant for your walk and how you handle them to the witness before man as mine are to me. I’m grateful if my sharing has given you strength and insight to stand a bit taller than your already unbelievable height. selahV
Ron, oh yes. I’ve never doubted that God prepared my life and purposed in His heart a way in which my life would take me since reading Jeremiah’s words after I became a Christian, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew and approved of you [as My chosen instrument], and before you were born I separated and set you apart, consecrating you; [and] I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5
If God so showed us in Jeremiah’s life how He worked and knew him and set him apart, then I have always clung to that assurance that He did the same for me. Though I am not a prophet, I am a witness to His providential hand and sovereign grace.
I see it this way. God’s perfect will is that we (even my parents and their parents) all follow Him so closely that we never deviate from the paths He sets before us. His Sovereignty covers our mistakes when we take a detour while under His permissive will to bring us back to the path of His perfect will. And though my ancestors have never acknowledge God, nor followed His precepts, God has taken their mistakes and formed in me an understanding of my own life and the purpose He has for me. I won’t blame my ancestory for what I do with my present. I accept the responsibility for the ways in which I erred along the way and am grateful for God’s mercy in my mistakes.
Blessings to you, Ron. Many thanks for your gracious words to me. selahV
SelahV,
Last Sunday I preached about believing God through the sufferings and tribulations of life. I wish you’d been here to preach your testimony.
C
Thanks for sharing part of your story. I think if we all just sat down and took the time to hear one another’s stories, we wouldn’t be so quick to judge each other on all our faults and weaknesses. After reading your story, I have a new found respect and appreciation for you. Might we all take the time to listen to one another’s hearts through their life stories. I think it would greatly assist us to be more obedient to Christ’s command to “love one another.”
Cyle, well, I’d sure would have been honored to be used of God in your church. thanks for gracious words. selahV
Guy, thank you for your kind words. I totally agree we could be well assisted by knowing one another’s stories. As a matter of fact, I really try to remember that whoever is reading my words on the other side of their monitor that I put myself in their place and understand there are various things they’ve gone through that have led them to the conclusions of life they espouse.
I think since we cannot know every person’s story unless we ask them, and unless they are willing to share, I would think it behoove us to follow our Savior’s commands not to judge one another, but be more concerned with our own timbers rather than the flecks in our brother’s eyes. Thanks for pointing out that aspect of remaining in fellowship with one another. selahV
Wonderful encouragements as always SelahV.
Steve
This is exactly what I always thought SBC Impact! was going to be about. Honest, moving testimony that would spur others on to encourage and love. This might be one of a very few times that I didn’t quit reading before I reached the end of the SBC Impact! devotion. Yes, I can attribute some of that desire to finish to the fact that I know SelahV personally. She taught me a million things about God when I was a youth in her youth group. But, I also attribute it to the fact that this devotion bred only the hunger to lift SelahV up in prayer and to thank her for being willing to share glimpses of a past (and present) that made me cry. I adore her family and grew up with that precious son she lost. Life is too short to spend on things that have no eternal value. This is the kind of stuff I would love to read each time I visit this blog. Thank you, SelahV, for setting your sights on the Kingdom! I love you more with every new morning.
Hi SelahV-
Thank you for that wonderful testimony of the grace and sovereignty of our Lord. He really is the only One who can carry us through the kind of things you’ve experienced.
Kat
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