Pastor Ryan taught Sunday school yesterday on the Christian and Anxiety. I've transcribed a section below which really hit home.
I learned to love the sovereignty of God during a very dark time for my family. So much evil was turned for good, that I can honestly thank God for the trial. But knowing God is sovereign doesn't necessarily make the pain go away. So it stings when it's used as a pat phrase to insensitively buck someone up in a trial or to romanticize suffering in a pietistic way. That's why I appreciate Pastor Ryan's frankness about how it can seem scary at times and his reminder that God is sovereign and the Giver of precious promises to cling to in the darkest times.
You can listen here. He also wrote a booklet on the topic.
"But when we think of God's sovereignty, sometimes it is very difficult because we might have been through very challenging or traumatic events, and God's sovereignty is scary. Because I went through this hurt and God was sovereign, so what does that mean for tomorrow? And we can, if we are not resting in God's promises regularly, start to develop a -
The Bible does not equate the two like that, but we do... We kind of develop a "God is sovereign so I am fearful." But God's sovereignty actually is the friend of the anxious Christian not his/her enemy. It is the rock solid conviction that God is ordering all things rightly, fueled by the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. This is the bulwark in our deepest fears...
We don't know all the details and we don't know how we are going to get there, but we do know the end of the story. (Rev. 21) And God's sovereignty means it is not potentially going to happen. It really is going to happen. That's why God's sovereignty is our friend even though at times it feels like a salt shaker over our wounds."
I learned to love the sovereignty of God during a very dark time for my family. So much evil was turned for good, that I can honestly thank God for the trial. But knowing God is sovereign doesn't necessarily make the pain go away. So it stings when it's used as a pat phrase to insensitively buck someone up in a trial or to romanticize suffering in a pietistic way. That's why I appreciate Pastor Ryan's frankness about how it can seem scary at times and his reminder that God is sovereign and the Giver of precious promises to cling to in the darkest times.
You can listen here. He also wrote a booklet on the topic.
"But when we think of God's sovereignty, sometimes it is very difficult because we might have been through very challenging or traumatic events, and God's sovereignty is scary. Because I went through this hurt and God was sovereign, so what does that mean for tomorrow? And we can, if we are not resting in God's promises regularly, start to develop a -
God's sovereignty = When is the next shoe going to drop?
The Bible does not equate the two like that, but we do... We kind of develop a "God is sovereign so I am fearful." But God's sovereignty actually is the friend of the anxious Christian not his/her enemy. It is the rock solid conviction that God is ordering all things rightly, fueled by the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. This is the bulwark in our deepest fears...
We don't know all the details and we don't know how we are going to get there, but we do know the end of the story. (Rev. 21) And God's sovereignty means it is not potentially going to happen. It really is going to happen. That's why God's sovereignty is our friend even though at times it feels like a salt shaker over our wounds."
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