In Book One, Part IV, Chapter 16 of John Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion (abridged version), a book I have been working through lately, he says some very insightful and magnifying things about the Providence of God. Below I have quoted a few snippets. The language may be a little dated, but see if you can work through it and notice the riches of what he is saying:
It would be cold and unfeeling to picture a God as a temporary Creator, who completed his work and then left it. Here we differ from the unbeliever in asserting that God's power is obvious in the ongoing world situation as well as in creation.
Without reference to God's Providence we cannot understand the full force of what is meant by his being the Creator, however much we may seem to understand it with our minds and confess it with our mouths. The carnal mind, when it has glimpsed the power of God in creation, stops there. At most it considers only the wisdom, power and goodness evidenced by the Author of such work, or some general factor on which the power of motion depends and which keeps the world going. To sum it up: it imagines that everything is maintained by the divine energy infused into them at the beginning (emphasis mine). But faith must go far deeper.
After realizing there is a Creator, it must then infer that he is also Governer and Preserver, not just because he can produce a kind of general motion in the machine of the universe, as well as in each of its parts, but because by his special Providence he sustains and cares for everything he has made down to the smallest sparrow!
God claims omnipotence for himself, and wants us to acknowledge it. God's omnipotence is not futile, idle, and inactive as some theologians pretend, but caring, effective, energetic, and always active. It is not an omnipotence which can only serve as a general influence in uncertainty (like ordering a stream to stay inside a prescribed channel), but one which focuses on specific and definite events. God is accepted as omnipotent, not because he has power whether he acts or not, nor because by some general instinct he maintains the order of creation, but because, in controlling heaven and earth by his Providence, he so overrules everything that nothing happens without his approval.
The believer's comfort in trouble is that everything they endure is ordained and commanded by God and that they are in his hands. If God's rule is over all his works, we would be foolish to restrict it to the natural order of things. Those who keep God's Providence within narrow limits, as if he let everything be carried along by some constant law of nature, not only deny him his glory but deprive themselves of a valuable doctrine. Nothing could be more pathetic than the thought of man at the mercy of unpredictable elements.
Knowing that God is in control of his creation, and knowing he is always GOOD in all that he does and allows; this causes me to sleep well and to trust him in all circumstances, that everything he decides to do or allows is ultimately going to work toward his good purpose.
This is a huge statement about God's providence. It is a weight lifted off my back as well. When I first accepted this doctrine of God's control--complete control over his creation, it was hard to take. It is a popular belief that God wouldn't allow cities to burn, flood, or be destroyed (Like New Orleans), or for 'bad things to happen to good people' in general. But, really, the good and the bad happen because God is sovereign. the book of Job is a direct tribute to God's complete control and providence. He had everyhting taken away at the approval of God and restored at His very thought.
This can be a very touchy subject for people, and let me tell you, at the root of a challenge or heartache, it isn't what you want to hear; God is your safeplace, but he also allowed the challenge that caused the heartache? How can this be? But then again, he is God. And we are not.
Job 40:6-14
6 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:
7 "Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
8 "Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
9 Do you have an arm like God's,
and can your voice thunder like his?
10 Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.
11 Unleash the fury of your wrath,
look at every proud man and bring him low,
12 look at every proud man and humble him,
crush the wicked where they stand.
13 Bury them all in the dust together;
shroud their faces in the grave.
14 Then I myself will admit to you
that your own right hand can save you.
Posted by: Josh Lynch | February 19, 2007 at 10:40 PM