Elisabeth Elliot’s husband (Jim) was one of four missionaries murdered by Auca warriors in South America (The movie “End Of The Spear” tells the story and is worth renting, watching, then purchasing.).  In 1981 Mrs. Elliot wrote this about the event…

  The Auca story… has pointed to one thing: God is God.  If He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service.  I will find rest nowhere but in His will, and that will is infinitely, immesurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.  God is the God of human history, and He is at work continuously, mysteriously, accomplishing His eternal purposes in us, through us, for us, and in spite of us… Cause and effect are in God’s hands.  Is it not the part of faith simply to let them rest there?  God is God.  I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice… The One who laid the earth’s foundations and settled its dimensions knows where the lines are drawn.  He gives all the light we need for trust and obedience. (“Through The Gates Of Splendor,” Tyndale 1981, pp 268-9, 273.)

Life is hard and confusing.  Along with that is God does not make sense  (But Him making sense isn’t required for me to love, obey, and worship Him).  In tension with both of those realities is my deep personal conviction that God is sovereign regardless of life events.

God’s sovereignty means He is in 100%, complete, and absolute control over everything, everyone, everywhere at all times… without exception.  It means that God can do what He wants… when He wants… to whoever He wants… in whatever way He wants simply because He is God.  And no human being has the right to question Him or His ways.  Why?  Because He is God and we aren’t.

Because God is sovereignly in control of everything… Christians have peace in the midst of great adversity from the Prince of Peace.

The widows of those missionaries didn’t run away after their husbands were killed… they trusted God, prayed for the Auca people, and eventually (Just a few years later) saw many come to saving faith in Jesus!  Question: Is it possible God caused/allowed this event in order to save people who otherwise would have died without Christ?  Answer: Yes.

That is what happend when Paul was thrown into prison!  Paul’s imprisonment was for lost people to be saved (Among other things).  God’s ways are different from our own, therefore we trust Him.

God IS God!  Could God do in our lives what He did in Paul & Mrs. Elliot’s life?  Yes.  Is it possible for us to have the perspective of Mrs. Elliot about life… the same view Paul had?  Yes.  And that will happen when we realize the universe doesn’t revolve around us… it’s all about God.

As we rest in God’s sovereignty, like Paul and Elisabeth Elliot did, we will know the God of Peace…