God’s Sovereignty in Our Suffering

 “Heaven rules.”
Daniel 4:26 (NIV)

Early on with our special needs parenting journey with James Bruce, I realized that God can handle our questions. He usually doesn't give us answers, but He can certainly handle our questions. Read the Psalms and you’ll see that many of them contain the “Why? And “How long?” questions that usually accompany our suffering. Even Jesus when he was dying on the cross asked, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46 NIV)

Several years ago, I attended a funeral for a young man who was suddenly and tragically killed by a bolt of lightning while out on the beach.  During the funeral, the presiding pastor addressed the "Why?" question by simply saying, "We don't know why. But if you know the "Who," it makes the "What" and the "Why" questions less overwhelming. When we don't know the "Why?" go back to what we do know. We know that God is sovereign; God is wise; and that He loves us. Trust Him."

Elisabeth Elliot, author, missionary, and wife who buried two of her husbands, was no stranger to grief and suffering. One of Elliot's favorite prayers was the Orthodox Morning Prayer that includes this petition: "Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all." Elliot writes,

"Nothing that comes to me is devoid of divine purpose. In seeking to see the whole with God's eyes, we can find the peace which human events so often destroy. I rest, dear Lord, in the knowledge that You are the Blessed Controller of all things." (The Music of His Promises, p.134)

Wherever we are today, we can rest in the knowledge that God is sovereign. He reigns and rules and nothing takes him by surprise. He is also a good, good Father (Matthew 6:8). Both of those truths provide much needed security and peace in the middle of our suffering, grief, and loss.

God’s sovereignty repeatedly strengthened me during our 38-year special needs parenting journey with James Bruce. It also comforted me in our grief with our son’s death in 2022.  God’s right to reign and rule braced me when I faced my breast cancer diagnosis and Bruce’s open heart surgery last year. With each crisis, I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that God knew where we were, and He meant for us to be there. He wasn’t surprised by any of it; he governed it.

But God isn’t just a sovereign God who reigns and rules. He is also the sovereign King who served and suffered for us. Jesus humbled himself (Philippians 2:7), became a man, and came to earth to go,  not to a throne, but to a cross. On the cross Jesus was abandoned by his Father, so that we would never be abandoned in our suffering. We have a Suffering Sovereign who knows and understands what it is to suffer. He never wastes our suffering, but can use it in ways we may not ever fully understand.

Maltbie Babcock understood God’s sovereignty when he wrote the hymn This Is My Father’s World in 1901. Normally we think of this song as a celebration of God’s creativity and design of nature, but stanzas three and four celebrate God’s sovereignty.

This is my Father’s world
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God Is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!

Knowing the Who, makes the "What?" and the "Why?" less overwhelming. Heaven rules!