Can You Really Trust God? (Grief Series Part 3)

This is Part 3 in a Series I’m sharing on Grief (although it is applicable to all of life).

If you’ve missed the first two parts, I’d love you to catch up here:

Part 1 – My Story And Tools To Help You Overcome Your Grief

Part 2 – How To Recognize God In All Circumstances

In the months and years following the tragedy that God allowed into my life, I would say that one of my greatest struggles was grappling with who was responsible for the car accident that claimed the lives of my mother, sister, and nephew.

Who Is Responsible For The Events That Happen To Us In Life?

There were those around me who immediately and persistently blamed Satan. They insisted that because we hadn’t bound him up that morning, he was free to reap destruction in our lives, and took the opportunity to do so.

Others pointed to human error as the culprit. They reasoned that because my sister was so far along in her pregnancy, she shouldn’t have been driving the car, and since she did, her third trimester fatigue led to her falling asleep at the wheel, which in turn caused the fatal accident.

While others in my life assured me that God’s perfect will and plan had been ordained since before time began, and that this occurrence was the sovereign hand of God, which nothing and no one could have thwarted.

So who was right?

Confusion reigned in my soul for many years as doubts and the endless search for answers whirled tirelessly around in my mind.

I reckoned that if you take the approach of the first two options; that Satan and human intervention are the results of what happens to you, then you are believing that the third option, God’s sovereignty is not the ruling force behind all of life. You are placing Satan and humanity above God’s Sovereignty. However, is it one or the other?

Let’s examine each option.

Human Intervention

Think of an illustration of a painter painting a picture. In order to produce the artwork, three components are involved in the activity:

The painting – represents your life

The paintbrush – represents you

The painter – represents God

So, your life is being beautifully laid out as an artwork. Is the paintbrush (you) painting the scene? No. It is the painter, who is holding, moving, and influencing the paintbrush, who is creating the masterpiece!

This little analogy helped me so much in understanding who orchestrated the event that was so life-changing, and in fact, who orchestrates every tiny detail and circumstance of my days. It couldn’t have been my sister alone who was the sole cause of the event.

Is Satan Behind the Tragic Incidences In Your Life?

The account of Job in your Bible demonstrates loudly and clearly who allowed tragic circumstances into his previously blessed existence. Remember the way this righteous man lost everything, his possessions, his health, his entire family?! Amazingly, it was actually God’s idea to allow Satan to test him!

Listen in:

The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?”

Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:7-8)

And then after a little dialogue, the Lord is the one who finally gives Satan the consent in Job 1:12:

“And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”

After the go-ahead from God, literally all hell broke loose in Job’s life.

However, even though Job went through a horrendous time of trial;

• The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before (Job 42:10)
• He blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning (Job 42:12)
• After this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations (Job 42:16)
• Job died, an old man, and full of days (Job 42:17)

God followed through with incredible blessing. Isn’t our Lord so kind and merciful!

Neither you nor I have gone through the difficult trials that Job did, but we can learn so much from the truth that God reveals as having occurred behind the scenes in the account of his life.

Can You Really Trust God?

Satan may have been allowed certain reign in Job’s circumstances, but God was fully in control, supremely sovereign, and eternally merciful to Job in the midst of and beyond his trials.

Beloved one, I wish that I could tell you that I’ve got it all figured out. But I don’t. Even while writing this post I was struggling with the truth of this issue. I don’t claim to know or understand the way life works. The conclusion I believe the Scriptures point to is that even though Satan and human intervention have a part to play in the events that happen to you, God is still sovereignly in control of it all.

Divine sovereignty is not the sovereignty of a tyrannical Despot, but the exercised pleasure of One who is infinitely wise and good! Because God is infinitely wise He cannot err, and because He is infinitely righteous He will not do wrong.

A.W. Pink

What happens in your life is not an accident, dear friend. It is not a coincidence. It is not a mistake. And it is not apart from God’s loving consent as He skillfully paints the handiwork that makes up your life.

God’s sovereignty is the thread that is woven throughout the Bible.

Job 42:2 is one of my favourite verses in the Bible, because he reassures the likes of you and I so well:

I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

When the truth of “So it was God…” dawned on me, I began to make sense of life. The peace of knowing that nothing can or does happen to you and I without His loving approval, is almost too wonderful to comprehend.

You can rest in this knowledge, dear one. The Lord reigns!

A book I highly recommend on the subject is Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts, by Jerry Bridges.

For Part 4 of this series, please head here: Dealing With Grief – A Practical and Powerful Tool

How would fully trusting God and believing in His loving sovereignty change the way you approach life? I’d love to hear your insights?

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