Trust in God’s Sovereignty
Ed McClanahan
My son-in-law, Jeremy, is a youth pastor at a church in Illinois. The church has a goal to get high-school seniors on foreign soil for a short term mission trip before they graduate. The team goes yearly to the Mission of Hope in the Dominican Republic (DR) during the kids’ spring break. On their recent flight there through Miami, a storm forced them to land in Fort Myers to wait it out. They ended up trapped on the plane while it sat on the tarmac for five hours! The flight attendants even ran out of water to serve the passengers! When they finally got moving again, everything seemed okay since American Airlines employees were telling them their connecting plane would be waiting for them at their departure gate. But upon arriving, they learned that American had just closed the door and the plane would be leaving without them. Since American didn’t have another flight to the DR for two days, the leaders scrambled to find an alternative. They discovered that Spirit Airlines had the seats they needed for the trip later that night, but they’d need to figure out a way to get to Fort Lauderdale. And since Spirit only allows nine seats per reservation, they needed three separate reservations! After getting that accomplished, the leadership team attempted to pay for the tickets. The first one went through just fine, but the second and third payments were oddly declined. A Spirit Airlines Agent assured them their reservations were secure and they could pay for the rest of the tickets at the counter when they arrived at the gate. But once again, their plans were squashed when they learned that Spirit had canceled the rest of their tickets, and sold them to other travelers. The trip was over!
When you hear stories like this, do you automatically assume that the enemy is at work? It’s an easy assumption to make. I choose to think that in God’s sovereignty, He put up the obstacles to this trip for Jeremy’s team. The hardest part about this is that those kids may never know the reason(s). If they didn’t hear about some catastrophe in the Dominican Republic, then they might assume that all would’ve been just fine. Sometimes we just don’t get to know.
But God knew. He knew that perhaps a serious illness was going to penetrate their team, and cause horrible circumstances beyond their wildest nightmares. Or maybe He knew there was going to be some sort of automotive collision, and kids were going to be hurt, or even killed? There’s no doubt in my mind that God protected those kids, and their whole team.
Romans 11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”
Daniel 4:34b-35 says, “His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’”
Are you someone who’s quick to criticize obstacles to your own plans? Maybe, just maybe, the Author of our lives is the one who put them there. And as hard as it might be to do sometimes, maybe we should practice thanking Him for doing so. He does it for our own good.