Sovereign

I don’t know about you, but I tend to be really hard on myself. If life isn’t going how I hoped, I’m quick to blame and beat myself up about it. “If only I had ___, this would be different…” The opposite is also true—if something goes great, I’m quick to walk with my head held high, proud of what I’ve accomplished.

“Pray like it all depends on God, work like it all depends on you” is a great concept to combat laziness and complacency, but it’s not scripture—and some of us take the “work like it all depends on us” part of that quote way too seriously, putting the pressure of the outcome entirely on our own shoulders.

But sometimes, God gives us things we don’t work for or deserve, and we don’t have to strive quite so hard along the way. This applies to both the good things and the hard things in our lives.

Joseph’s story is an amazing example of someone being handed a bad situation he didn’t deserve and couldn’t work his way out of (Genesis 37–47). First, he was left for dead by his brothers, then sold into slavery. Then he was framed by his master’s wife and thrown into prison. In prison, he helped people—but was forgotten.

So. Many. Setbacks—over a 20-year span of time, too. And he didn’t deserve the first one.

In a sermon I heard recently, the pastor mentioned that when counting the setbacks in Joseph’s story, he experienced two setbacks for every comeback along the way. But his final comeback—becoming second-in-command to the king and being able to forgive and provide for his family—is one that could have only been written by the hand of our amazing Father. It’s just that good.

Other times, God gives us good things that we don’t work for or deserve. Take the Israelites, for example. They rebelled against God time and time again. They wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and even after all of their foolish mistakes, He still gave His chosen people a promised land that they did not work for or earn:

“I gave you land you had not worked on, and I gave you towns you did not build—the towns where you are now living. I gave you vineyards and olive groves for food, though you did not plant them.”
—Joshua 24:13 (NLT)

This has been a consistent theme I’ve noticed in my personal time with God lately—that He is truly the one in control, not us.

I keep remembering COVID. It was the first time I fully realized I’m not in control like I thought I was. We had all those plans for the year that changed in an instant. None of us knew what was going to happen in 2020—we just had to buckle up and trust God. And we all made it through COVID, but this truth about God’s character didn’t go away afterward. It’s always been there. It’s just easier to see when life throws us unexpected curveballs—moments that remind us there is nothing we can do on our own to fix it.

Friend, may I remind you today that if you’ve made some mistakes or taken some wrong turns in your life’s journey, you haven’t surprised God. If you’re facing something hard that feels out of control, it’s not because God doesn’t care about you or want good things for your life. He gives us blessings we don’t deserve, and He has incredibly creative ways of getting us there.

He’s an amazing, sovereign God—and the best storywriter to ever exist.

Jesus didn’t deserve the cross—nor do we deserve the forgiveness and love He poured out by giving His life for us. But in the end, Jesus rose in victory over death, and we have forgiveness for every wrong turn we’ve ever made.

Let us remember this as we trust our Sovereign God in every chapter of our personal stories.

“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.”
—Proverbs 16:9

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
—Romans 8:28