Part 1: It’s True | Part 2: Jesus Included | Part 3: No Need to Grow | Part 4: No Need to Aspire
Another reason that God doesn’t change, again based on his perfection, is that he doesn’t face any power greater than himself.
Often we’re changed by outside forces greater than we are. Poverty. Crime. Disease. Politics. Even weather.
We fret about these things. We rage against the machine. Some of us obsess over one or more of them, I suppose as a way of feeling stronger against them. Both my mother and my brother died of cancer, and I well remember how all-consuming that battle became for each of them. I’ve known a lot of people who have survived cancer and lived long and happy lives afterwards. That wasn’t the outcome for my two family members.
I’ve written before about my visit to the little farming community of Spencer, South Dakota, a week after a tornado had changed the whole place from a town to an empty field in less than 10 minutes. There was literally nothing anyone there could do, other than wait for it to be over, and then rebuild.
Which they did.
I suppose politics is one powerful force where we (at least, those of us in democratic countries) feel as though we can make a difference—and perhaps that’s the reason why so many of us obsess in that area.
I’m all for doing what we can. I’ve been politically involved in multiple ways over the years. But I’ve also noticed that no matter who wins—“our” side or “theirs”—the leaders don’t become messiahs, and they are no substitute for the Real One.
God, you see, God is the Most High, the Most Powerful, the Mighty Warrior. There is no force in the universe—or outside of it—that is greater than he is. He is never between a rock and a hard place. His holdings are never decreased by the advance of enemy armies. He is not moved; he is not threatened; he is not set back; he is not frustrated in any of his purposes.
He is absolutely great, absolutely powerful.
The history of the world is the story of the rise and fall of kingdoms.
Sumer. Akkad. Assyria. Babylon. Persia. Greece. Rome. The Mongols. The medieval Church. The Holy Roman Empire (OK, not quite so impressive as the others). The British Empire. The French Republic. The Third Reich. The USA. The …
On and on it will go, for as long as the King of Kings allows. But whether the remaining time is half a decade or a hundred thousand years, one thing is certain.
Leaders will rise, and then they will fall. Enslaved peoples will be liberated, and free peoples will be enslaved. Pendulums will swing.
And none of those leaders will deliver us. None of them will be reliable. No social contract will endure. No human utopia will ever come.
But one day, oh, one day, the King will rise from his throne, where he has silently but surely and powerfully been orchestrating earthly kingdoms for all of time, and he will shake the heaven and the earth, the sea and the dry land, and he will establish his kingdom forever.
I happen to think he will do so visibly and politically. Many of my friends—and they are friends—do not. They’re not moved by my arguments, even as I am not moved by theirs. As thus will it ever be, until the King rises and speaks.
But he will rise, and he will speak. And all the forces in the universe, including that old serpent himself, will fall, silent and powerless, before him.
And then, eternally, justice will be done, and peace will prevail, for the King is greater than any force outside himself.
And we will never die. For he is greater, too, than death. We need not rage against the dying of the light, either.
Now if someone is that powerful, we had better hope that he is Good.
And he is.
Part 6: No Decay | Part 7: Trustworthiness | Part 8: Mercy | Part 9: Confidence | Part 10: Victory
Photo by Taylor Deas-Melesh on Unsplash
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