“But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.” (Genesis 12:17, NIV).
Abram, in fear of his own life, jeopardized his wife's life and (humanly speaking) jeopardized the eternal plan of God to bring the Messiah through the Abrahamic lineage. Of course such usurping of the decree of God is absurd. The sin of Abram teaches us something of God's sovereign providence over the affairs of mankind. One would think that God would have dealt with Abram on this, but instead God brings events into Pharaoh's life to the degree that he would have to discover whose wife Sarai was and make the necessary changes.
The interaction into the lives of men and women affirms the Biblical truth that God is involved and presides over all His creation. He is neither passive or impotent. Wayne Grudem defines God's "Providence" this way:
"God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes." [1] God's sovereignty is never at odds with man's will. In fact the will of man is a necessary means to God's will being carried out. The difference though is two-fold:
1. Man's will is always subservient to God's will.
2. God's way of using man's will is to cause man to be willing.
"All our actions are under God’s providential care, for “in him we live and move” (Acts 17:28). The individual steps we take each day are directed by the Lord. Jeremiah confesses, “I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). We read that “a man’s steps are ordered by the LORD” (Prov. 20:24), and that “a man’s mind plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). Similarly, Proverbs 16:1 affirms, “The plans of the mind belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.” [2]
Father, it is so easy to assume that I command and control the destiny of my life. No so! My life and times are in Your hands. You have and continue to direct my life in accordance with Your perfect and sovereign will. It is a great mystery how you fold up my choices and the choices of millions of people and shape them in conformity to Your eternal, unchanging and holy will. Your ways are not our ways; and Your ways are beyond human knowledge. The joy that we have in Christ is to know that indeed all things are working together for our good and for the glory of God. Today I surrender to Your will for it is there I know I will be amazingly happy in this life and unbelievably happy in the life to come.
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1. Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: An introduction to biblical doctrine (315). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.
2. Ibid, (320).
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