Do you believe in magic? I sure hope my luck holds out. It was a simple twist of fate. The team doesn’t stand a chance. May the force be with you. All these exclamations seek to explain why things happen the way they do.
What do the words magic, luck, fate, chance and force have in common? What binds them together into a cohesive whole? Ironically, the correct answer is nothing because all these concepts are nothing. They do not exist. They are not real. They are not truth. They are impersonal ideas with no power or ability having no reason or rhyme. In other words, magic, luck, fate, chance, are attempts to explain away the doctrine of God’s person, power and providence.
I often remark to friends and acquaintances that I do not believe in coincidences. A coincidence is a series of circumstances with no apparent causal power. It’s finding a parking space exactly when you need one. It’s the grocery store employee putting a highly in demand sale item on the store shelf just as you enter the aisle. It’s resigning from one job you had and then receiving an offer “out of the blue” for a job you want and are qualified. It’s trying to select a surgeon from a submitted list and then discovering a fellow believer in Christ worked for one of the doctors on the particular list and gives you a high recommendation for that surgeon. These are all personal examples. Perhaps you can relate.
Providence is from the word “provide.” The prefix “pro” is from the Latin meaning “forward” or “on behalf of,” and “vide” meaning “to see.” However, providence does not simply mean to see forward or to see what happens before it happens. Rather, God’s providence is “the act or purposefully providing for, or sustaining and governing, the world,” states pastor and teacher Dr. John Piper.
In other words, providence acknowledges God is in active control of everything happening in this world. He not only created the world (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1-2), but He also sustains the world He created (Heb. 1:1-3). In God alone we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). This truth applies to all of creation. It applies to the converted and the unconverted.
“As Christians, we know there is really no such thing as luck, chance, or fate. We understand that providence is not the Christian synonym for coincidence. We know that everything happens for a reason, and unlike unbelievers who often say the same thing, we actually know the God who is in control of all things. We know the ultimate reason that everything happens: God’s glory and our ultimate, eternal good,” explains Pastor Burk Parsons.
“As Christians, we cannot help but believe that God is sovereign, for if we don’t believe in His sovereignty, we don’t actually believe that God is God. And if we believe in the sovereignty of God, we must also believe in the providence of God. Though sovereignty and providence are inseparably related, they are not the same. Simply put, God’s providence is the active outworking of God’s sovereignty in everything. Thus, there are no good providences or bad providences, happy or hard providences, but simply providence.”
Isaiah 46:8–10 (ESV) says, 8 “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.”
Pastor John Piper defines providence as God’s purposeful action. “God is never merely an observer. He is not a passive observer of the world—and not a passive predictor of the future. Wherever God is looking, God is acting. What we find in the Bible is real and raw. The prizing and proclamation of God’s pervasive providence was forged in flames of hatred and love, deceit and truth, murder and mercy, carnage and kindness, cursing and blessing, majesty and revelation, and finally, crucifixion and resurrection.”
Believers in Christ have the ability to see God’s providence in everything which happens in our lives. The question is whether we joyfully acknowledge this biblical truth or just begrudgingly and reluctantly accept it. Our response to God’s purposeful sovereignty determines whether we will have joy or sorrow, trust or distrust, peace or anxiety in living for Christ in this life.
Consider the words of the Apostle Paul. 33 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33–36 (ESV)
This series of articles is not coincidental, a simple twist of fate, or a matter of luck or chance. Neither is your reading of the same. It is providential. I’m glad you’re with me on this journey into the heights and depths of biblical truth of the providence of God.
Soli deo Gloria!
His Word Today 