Trusting God's Sovereignty

God showed me something very meaningful this weekend through 2 sermons that I got to sit under (nice to be on the receiving end this weekend). What God showed me emerged out of 2 passages of scripture in 2 separate books.

Acts 28:1-10 (click to read it)
Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta and then he was bitten by a snake. Sounds like a bad day to me! But God had a plan! These 2 terrible things led to a divine appointment with the chief of the island. That meeting led to the whole island receiving healing and being impacted for the glory of God. This encouraged me that even when we may feel that are lives are shipwrecked or snake bitten and we don't understand why we are in this mess....we need to trust God's sovereignty. He has a plan. We just may not see it yet. If we did, we might mess it all up.

John 11: 1-43 (click here to read it)
In this passage Lazarus dies, Mary and Martha (his sisters) are grieving and Jesus shows up. But here is the problem. He shows up too late. At least that is what the sisters thought! You see, Lazarus was already dead and Mary and Martha are just convinced that if Jesus would have shown up earlier, he could have saved him (which didn't really matter since Jesus ends up raising him from the dead later in the passage). I don't know if you can relate to this, but over and over again I hear people second guessing tragedy and struggles. If I would have just..., I wish I could have...., If they would have just...., etc. We can all "could've, should've, would've" until we are blue in the face, but the reality is that God is still sovereign and he still has a plan. Again, if we knew too much about it, we would mess it up.

I think that John 11:4 captures God's intention for everything we face: "...it is for God's glory so the God's son may be glorified through it!"

God definitely has a plan for your life. He even has a plan for the bad stuff that seems to make no sense! What can you do this week to trust God's sovereignty more? You never know what he can end up doing with your shipwreck and your snake bite.