The Issue: Uncertainty

Context: Ever had one of those moments when a topic was lingering in the air unspoken but you felt it in your bones? It was perhaps as real as anything you could weigh and measure. That’s what’s going on with this government shutdown. It hit me, too, like a punch in the gut when my paycheck showed up for this pay cycle, but it was filled with all zeros. That’ll get your attention, I assure you, when it happens to you. You work, you serve, you still do your duty, and the political leadership repays you with zeros. It can alter your perspective. It can make you question things. It can shake your confidence. It can rattle you. Moments like this can make you step back and think. I mean, what does it reveal about a nation that is not paying its military? That’s pretty scary, right? If one has skin in the game, it is indeed scary.

Question: Where does one turn in times of uncertainty? I try to put myself in other people’s shoes in order to see things from opposing viewpoints when thinking through an issue. If I were secular, there’s no one to pray to, no one listening, and we are just cosmic accidents, random atoms without intention or design, origin, transcendent meaning, or teleology. If I were like that, I would indeed despair. There are only the human machinations to remedy what human folly has wrought.

But for the Christian, he/she knows that all events in heaven, on earth, and under the earth are under the sovereignty of God. As one of our historic confessions reads,

God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. (WCF 5.1)

Encouragement/takeaway: This Sunday I will again stand before the saints and open the Scriptures and labor to teach faithfully the Word of God. I, too, submit to their authority. I do not trust in chariots or horses but in the God who rules them and all things. We can learn from this moment to stay close to the Lord, to look to Him in all things, not just in the bad times or lean times. For the secularist, he/she has nothing and no one but the very people who got us into this mess. For the Christian pilgrim, however, he confesses this great verity: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).