"Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?" —Lamentations 3:37, 38
These words were written by the prophet Jeremiah, as he lived the destruction of Judah and the exile of most of her people, the judgment of God on a persistently rebellious and unrepentant nation. This is one of those verses that we would like to relegate to a specific happening in history that has nothing to do with us who live on the other side of the cross.
It's the same God on both sides of the cross. He hasn't changed. And when we face that truth, we are also faced with some trust issues. Can I trust a God who might choose to bring calamity into my life?
Not all calamity is a sign of judgment. As I read Luke 8 this morning, I was reminded that what we view as calamity can have many purposes behind it, the central one of which is God's glory and our ultimate good.
In Luke 8 we have parable of the sower. Some seed didn't make it, didn't produce a harvest. We have the encounters Jesus had with His disciples during a raging storm, His meeting with a demon-possessed man, a sick woman, and a dying girl. In these encounters we cover just about everything that describes the challenges of life both then and now. And the question Jesus asked of His disciples, "Where is your faith?", may not have been outrightly stated in the other stories told, but I'd bet the farm (if I had one) that at some point the people involved in these encounters asked a similar question of themselves: "Do I trust Him?"
Download the study and journey with us to look at some of the both uncomfortable and comforting truths about the sovereignty of God.