Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

by Jerry Bridges

As we have examined the Scriptures to see what they teach us about the sovereignty of God, I have occasionally injected a word of caution about the dangers of misusing or abusing the teaching of His sovereignty. In this chapter, we want to address that problem in greater detail lest we unconsciously begin to think that God’s sovereignty negates any responsibility of ours to live responsible and prudent lives. There is an old story about a man who carried the doctrine of God’s sovereignty to such an extreme that he drifted into a sort of divine fatalism. One day, walking down a flight of stairs, he carelessly stumbled and fell headlong to the bottom of the staircase. Picking himself up, he gingerly felt his bruises and said to himself, “Well, I’m glad that one is over.” You and I, if we are not careful, can, like the foolish man in the story, drift into a fatalistic attitude about the sovereignty of God. A student who fails an important exam tries to excuse himself by saying, “Well, God is sovereign, and He determined that I should fail that exam.” A driver can cause an auto accident and, in his own mind, evade his carelessness by attributing the accident to the sovereignty of God. Obviously both attitudes are unbiblical and foolish, yet we can easily drift into them.