The sovereignty of God means that God works everything according to His purpose and plan. Nothing surprises God or is outside His control. Ephesians 1:11 describes God as one "who works all things according to the counsel of his will." If everything (with regard to man and creation) is not under God's ultimate control, that means chance is ultimately under control. R.C. Sproul remarked, “there is not a stray molecule in the universe". This means that all who have a relationship with God as our Father through His Son Jesus Christ can rejoice in all situations. God didn't spare His own Son, but gave Him up for all of us, so how will He not also graciously give us all things?
This is a great idea in theory, but it was put to the test this a few weeks ago when Teresa and I traveled to Harrisburg, PA to attend a weekend marriage conference. We were in a hurry to leave Friday afternoon after class. On our way out, Teresa had Beni's leash in one hand, was carrying a bag or two, and also had her keys in the other hand. She stopped by the mailbox to check our mail. We then packed our car, dropped off Beni at a friend's house, and started our 2-hr drive from Philly to Harrisburg. Everything good so far....then we get a phone call.
We missed the call, but it turned out to be the apartment management. The guy sounded somewhat frustrated. It turns out that Teresa had left all her keys on the mailbox, and someone in one of our other apartments had picked them up and called the apartment management. A part of me wanted to panic and start worrying about our mail, our apartment, etc...By God's grace, I didn't get angry at Teresa and I realized that it was an honest mistake that anyone could have made. We decided to trust God with the whole thing. We didn't think about it the whole weekend.
When we got back, the guy who picked up our keys met us in the parking lot. He was somewhat distressed as he wasn't sure what had happened to us. He thought we might have been attacked, robbed, or something. He thought we had gone out of town, but wasn't sure. All he knew was that our keys were left behind, the apartment was locked, nobody was answering (not even our dog). He came really close to calling the police to report the situation. But, he was glad to see us.
We were glad he picked up our keys. It was cool to know that he was watching out for us, kind of like a distressed parent waiting for a teen who hasn't come home yet. And by God's plan, I had met this neighbor earlier when he was trying to revive his car battery. I offered to give him a jump start if he ever needed it. And through this previous encounter, we got to meet and establish friendly relations.
As we were talking in the parking lot and reflecting on the first time we met, other neighbors stopped by and joined the conversation. When one neighbor saw that a crowd had gathered, she jokingly wondered if it was a block party!
A prayer and desire of ours has been to meet our neighbors, get to know them, and share Christ through our words and our lives. God answered this desire through Teresa leaving her keys dangling outside the mailbox! This is the kind of thing that could have led me to anger and frustration at Teresa. But, God did something wonderful with it.
God truly is sovereign and works all things for our good and ultimately His glory.
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1 comment:
thanks for sharing this story :) so glad to hear you got to meet your neighbors and were able to stay calm and trusting God through this. (and i, too, have left my keys in them mailbox key slot before, too. they were there for almost 2 days when i mentioned my missing keys to a neighbor and it clicked with her that those keys at the mailbox were probably mine)
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