My little children, do not despair.
I say that with the affection of an old man who has lived long enough to see a few things come and go. I have witnessed victories and defeats, promises made and broken, hopes fulfilled and hopes disappointed. I have seen circumstances that seemed overwhelming at the time fade into distant memories.
I have not walked in your shoes. I do not know the burdens you carry, the disappointments you have endured, or the fears that trouble your heart. I would not presume to tell you that your suffering is insignificant.
But I would share something I have learned along the way.
God is in charge.
If your candidate was not elected, you may be disappointed. If the person elected is someone you believe to be evil, you may be deeply troubled. If you fear what tomorrow may bring, I understand.
But, my friends, do not despair.
Look beyond the present. Look beyond the circumstances of this moment. Look beyond the kingdoms and empires of humanity, beyond the ambitions of rulers and the desires of the masses.
Look at what God has done.
God was in charge when Joseph's brothers plotted to kill him and ultimately sold him into slavery. Their intentions were evil, but their evil could not defeat God's purposes.
God was in charge when famine drove Jacob and his family into Egypt, where they found refuge through the very brother whose suffering had prepared the way for their survival.
God was in charge through the generations Israel spent in Egypt, including the bitter years of slavery when Pharaoh sought to crush a people who belonged to God.
God was in charge when Moses confronted Pharaoh, when the sea opened before Israel, and when the people wandered forty years in the wilderness, struggling with fear, hunger, thirst, disobedience, and unbelief.
God was in charge when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and carried God's people into exile in Babylon.
God was in charge when Babylon fell and Persia rose, when empires succeeded empires, and when a remnant returned to the land of their fathers.
God was in charge when Rome extended its dominion over the land promised to Abraham.
And God was in charge when religious leaders conspired against Jesus, when Roman authority condemned Him, and when the Son of God was nailed to a cross.
God was in charge when the stone was rolled away and the tomb was found empty.
And God is in charge today.
Do you see the pattern?
Kings came and went. Empires rose and fell. Nations were conquered. Cities were destroyed. People suffered. People died. God's people sometimes obeyed and sometimes rebelled. They trusted Him, doubted Him, complained against Him, and repeatedly tried to accomplish His purposes on their own terms.
Yet through it all, God preserved His promises. He preserved the line through which the Messiah would come. He accomplished what He had purposed, often through circumstances His people neither understood nor desired.
Joseph eventually recognized this when he told his brothers:
"You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people." (Genesis 50:20, CSB)
Joseph did not call their evil good. He did not pretend that his suffering had been pleasant or that their betrayal was justified.
He simply recognized that their intentions had not overcome God's purposes.
And that distinction matters.
God's sovereignty does not mean that everything humanity does is good. It does not mean that injustice should be ignored, that suffering should be dismissed, or that evil should go unchallenged.
It means that evil does not have the final word.
The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us:
"There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1, CSB)
There is a time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to be silent and a time to speak.
Discern the time in which you live. Embrace it.
Not because you approve of everything happening around you. Not because you must accept injustice without protest or abandon your responsibility to your neighbor.
Embrace the time because it is the time in which you have been given the opportunity to love, to serve, to speak truth, to practice mercy, and to bear witness to the goodness of God.
You cannot choose the century into which you were born. You cannot control the ambitions of rulers or the decisions of nations. You cannot arrange history according to your preferences.
But you can be faithful in the circumstances in which you find yourself.
And you can look beyond them.
Ecclesiastes uses a remarkable Hebrew word: hevel.
It is often translated as vanity, futility, or meaninglessness. But its literal imagery is that of a vapor, a breath, something fleeting and impossible to grasp.
That is the nature of so much of our existence under the sun.
We build, and what we build eventually crumbles. We acquire, and what we acquire passes to someone else. We celebrate victories that time will diminish. We mourn defeats that history will eventually forget.
We strive to control circumstances that were never entirely within our control.
Kings come and go. Empires come and go. Elections are won and lost.
Hevel.
Not because these things have no consequences. They do. Sometimes terrible consequences. Human suffering is real, and the choices we make matter.
But none of these things is permanent. None is ultimate. None can bear the weight of our eternal hope.
God is not hevel.
He is not a vapor that appears for a moment and disappears. He does not rise and fall with the fortunes of nations. He is not diminished by the defeat of a political movement or strengthened by its victory.
He is the enduring reality beyond the fleeting circumstances of human existence.
He is, if you will, the anti-hevel.
The One who is not subject to the transience that characterizes everything under the sun.
And Ecclesiastes offers another remarkable observation. God has placed eternity in the human heart, yet humanity cannot comprehend His work from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
There is our dilemma.
We live within time, but we long for eternity. We see fragments, but we want to understand the whole. We experience the present, but we want to know how the story ends.
And when the present does not unfold according to our expectations, we become anxious. We become angry. Sometimes we despair.
We want God to fix things.
More precisely, we want God to fix things according to our understanding of how they ought to be fixed.
But what if our understanding is incomplete?
What if the circumstances we would never have chosen are circumstances through which God is accomplishing purposes we cannot yet comprehend?
What if we are so occupied with trying to impose our will upon His that we fail to recognize the grace He is already extending?
That brings us to a question more important than who won an election.
Have we accepted God's grace for what it is, on God's terms?
Or are we struggling against that grace, insisting that our plans, our preferences, and our understanding would produce a better outcome than His?
Grace is not God's promise to arrange the world according to our desires.
Grace is God's gift of Himself, offered to us through Jesus Christ.
It is not something we earn, control, or improve upon. It is something we receive.
And receiving grace means learning to trust the Giver, even when we do not understand His purposes.
That does not mean we must pretend to be pleased with everything that happens.
We may grieve. We may protest injustice. We may plead with God to intervene. We may tell Him that we are frightened, confused, disappointed, or angry.
The Psalms are filled with such prayers.
Even Jesus, in Gethsemane, expressed His desire that the cup might pass from Him.
But He concluded, "Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." (Luke 22:42, CSB)
There is the heart of the matter.
Not resignation to fate.
Not indifference to suffering.
Not the abandonment of responsibility.
Trust.
Trust that the God who preserved Joseph through betrayal, Israel through bondage, His people through exile, and His promises through the rise and fall of empires has not somehow lost control of His creation today.
Trust that the God who brought resurrection out of crucifixion is not defeated by the wickedness of humanity.
Trust that His purposes are greater than our understanding, His grace greater than our failures, and His faithfulness greater than our fears.
My little children, I cannot promise you that tomorrow will be pleasant.
I cannot promise that your preferred leaders will govern, that justice will always prevail in your lifetime, or that the circumstances you fear will never come to pass.
I cannot even promise that you will understand what God is doing.
But I can point you toward the One who is not confined by the circumstances that confine us.
And I can remind you that the same God who was faithful yesterday remains faithful today.
So discern the time in which you live.
Embrace the opportunities it presents.
Love God. Love your neighbor. Speak truth. Practice mercy. Defend the vulnerable. Do the good that lies before you.
And when the affairs of humanity threaten to overwhelm you, lift your eyes beyond the present.
Look beyond the kingdoms of this world.
Look beyond the victories and defeats.
Look beyond the hevel.
Look to the One who is eternal.
God was in charge yesterday.
God is in charge today.
And God will be in charge tomorrow.
My little children, do not despair.
