Sovereignty of God

Reposted from Rooted Thinking.

An Untimely Trial

I was hit with a virus, likely mosquito-borne that our Singaporean doctor in Phnom Penh could not identify. It gave me sustained high fevers for more than a week. The doctor sent lab results to Singapore to try to determine what this was. After ruling out major viruses, she admitted there are still many unidentified that cause the pain and fevers I had. I left the clinic for home, since I had already been a week in Phnom Penh, a six-hour drive away from my family in Pursat.

As time rolled by, the fevers were gone, but symptoms like nerve and joint pain, bad headaches, and extreme fatigue came in waves. I was very affected by noise and touch, the sensations ramping up my pain. We were in the middle of tremendous blessing in ministry, people coming to Christ and changing, a spiritual breakthrough. We had three potential church plants in motion. We were living our dream, as it were, church planting in Cambodia’s Folk Buddhist heartland.

A Seeming Setback

Our lives had been fully committed to and engrossed in learning language and culture while doing evangelism and discipleship. Our team was aggressively proclaiming the Gospel in several areas. God was starting to work in hearts. We were full of joy in the midst of a life and ministry that presented serious challenges. My wife Jennifer had her own deep valley of health concerns after repeated parasitic infections, and my own strange set of symptoms was limiting my abilities.

Some Christians think that a belief in God’s absolute sovereignty discourages a healthy prayer life. In reality, though, God’s sovereignty provides us with some of the greatest motivations to pray. I’d like to highlight just two of those motivations from Proverbs 21:30-31:

There is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel against the LORD. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the LORD.

God’s Sovereignty Keeps us from Despair.

At first glance, verse 30 appears to describe a sinless environment. Only in a world without sin can it be said, “There is no wisdom, understanding, or counsel against the Lord.” Such a condition existed prior to the fall and will exist after the return of Christ. In contrast, we see plenty of opposition to the Lord in our day. In the language of Psalm 2:2, “The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed” (NAS).

However, Proverbs 21:30 is not teaching the absence of opposition to God. Actually, it’s teaching the non-existence of human wisdom, understanding, or counsel that can prevail against the Lord (see NIV, NLT, ESV). It’s expressing the same truth expressed by the Scripture writer in Psalm 33:10-11: “The LORD nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation” (NAS).