Maybe Browning Was Right

I was reading through some old blog posts yesterday, mine and those written by others as well. I came across a post I had written several years ago titled That's Not How I Would Do It. I could just as easily written that post this week or this month, because there are a lot of things going on in the world about which I could say that's not how I would do it.

My husband and I often got a good laugh from his dad about this very thing. When we are driving Al's parents around town, to a restaurant or to shop, we usually heard, more than once, "we don't go this way." When Al would be helping his dad with a project around the house, it was common to hear "that's not how I do it" or "we don't do it that way." It became a standing joke around our house! 

 

A few years ago, following Al's dad's knee replacement and his mom's Alzheimer's diagnosis, we had arranged some in-home help for them. That worked only for a short while. The reason it no longer worked? She didn't "cook like we do". She did things differently "than we do them". "We don't do it that way."


The poet Robert Browning once wrote God's in His heaven; all's right with the world. I have to take issue with that. There's a lot that's not right with the world! Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, unemployment, broken marriages, strained relationships, financial strain, riots. Do I need to go on? And that list didn't even mention ISIS and other terrorists. You could probably add other things to the list based on the circumstances of your own life. All we really need to do is turn on a news broadcast for a few minutes to see that there is much that is not right in our world. As I think about all those things, I find myself saying If I were in charge, I wouldn't do it that way.

 

There are any number of things about which I would like to say we don't do it that way. And if you are at all like me, as you look at the circumstances in the world around you, you might also be thinking that if I were in charge, I would do things differently. This is not how I would handle it.

The good news is, we don't have to handle it, at least in terms of making everything turn out right.  That's not our job; it's God's job. Our job is to trust Him, to be obedient to His commands to us in Scripture, to know that He knows what He's doing, and to remember that He has it all under control.  Our God is an awesome God, as the song says. He's also a sovereign God, and He's got it all covered. Our sovereign God has it all under control. 

 

Maybe Browning was right after all!



"For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation.  All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing and He does what He wants with the army of heaven and the inhabitants of earth.  There is no one who can hold back His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?' " 

(Daniel 4:34-35 HCSB)