Everything's from God

When we think of God, and have to describe Him, we choose words like The Merciful, The Forgiving, The Righteous. We thank God for the good in our lives, and ask Him to grant us even more. And rightly so, He loves His children, and is willing to provide them with eternal life. There is nothing we ask for that God needs to lift a finger for; for Him it is to speak and it is there. He is the One who made our reality, with everything in it, and can shape it however He wills. But in this indeed, by Him all things were created that are in the heavens and that are on earth, the visible and the invisible, all things were created by Him and for Him. And nothing that happens, including the evil and the suffering we experience, falls outside His sovereign will. The Lord tells us Himself, I make peace and create calamity, I, the Lord, do all these things. The prophet Amos 3:6 poses us the question, Does disaster come upon a city unless the Lord has done it? Or in Lamentations 3:38, Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both evil and good come? God is ever almighty, the only fully sovereign being within existence. He who has full authority over the clay, who makes one vessel for honor and another for dishonor.

Job 2:10 Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity? Shall we make Job out to be a liar? He did not sin with his lips. When in 42:11 he lamented over all that the Lord had brought upon him, the Lord did not later come to tell him he was wrong, and that this was the devil. No, He came to tell Job that Job should not concern himself with the reasons why God does what He does.

He is the One who Ex 4:11 makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing or the blind, Dt 32:39 who kills and makes alive, who wounds and heals, 1 Sam 2:6-7 who makes rich, makes poor, humbles or exalts. Lam 3:37-38 From the mouth of the Most High comes both evil and good. Directly, or indirectly. For example with Saul, 1 Sam 16:14 where an evil spirit, which came from the Lord, terrified Saul. Or when Judg 9:23 He sends an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem.

This of course does not directly mean sin. God is not the One who tempts us to sin. He ordains it, permits it within His sovereign plan, but the choice to sin lies with man. And even that sin does not fall outside His ultimate purpose. And we must also acknowledge that sin is not directly connected to whether things go well or badly for you. There are plenty of examples of sinful people who live apart from God, whose entire life goes prosperously. And even if there were but one example of this, we would have to acknowledge that there is no absolute connection here. The same goes for the other side. There are plenty of examples of people who sincerely live for God, who are struck with illness. So here too it is difficult to claim that there must be an absolute direct connection.

We are at all times called to improve ourselves. We must be the tree that bears good fruit, the lamp that is visible. Deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Him. We too are part of God's plan in this.

If the Bible makes anything clear to us in this, it is that God is sovereign: He does what He does, and everything He does, whether we experience it as good or evil, He ultimately uses for good. However evil it may be in our eyes. Thus Joseph says to his brothers, who out of jealousy had sold him as a slave, Gen 50:20 You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good. What people intend for evil, God uses for good. Prov 16:4 The LORD has made everything for His own purpose, yes, even the wicked for the day of doom. And the day of God, that we may be with Him, is what it ultimately serves, what we will have to endure all illness, all disaster and adversity for. Isa 64:8 We are the clay, He the Potter.

And whatever may come upon our path: Job 2:10 accept the good and the bad. 1 Thess 5:16Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks to God in everything. Eph 1:11 For He is the One who works all things according to the counsel of His will. Ultimately God remains fully sovereign. He allows things to happen that we experience as evil, but not without purpose. As Augustine put it: God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to permit no evil at all. Therefore we may, however hard life sometimes is, know that nothing falls outside His will and that He works all things according to the counsel of His will.