I read this from my daily email from Family Life, and found it very encouraging. As Dennis Rainey says in this piece, I haven’t the foggiest idea of what God is up to. But either He is sovereign or He’s not. Since I believe He is, then that settles that.
This is a true story.
In the 1870s, when the citizens of Swan Quarter, North Carolina, began looking for a piece of property for a new Methodist church building, their sights fell on a nice piece of elevated land where the structure would be reasonably protected from coastal flooding. But the landowner had more lucrative plans for the property and declined their offer.
So the church was built on another site and dedicated on September 16, 1876. Within a matter of days, however, a monster hurricane reached landfall at this precise location. One casualty of the storm was the brand-new Swan Quarter United Methodist Church, which was lifted up off its pilings by the surging tide of storm water and was carried north—floating, intact—and then inexplicably east, eventually coming to rest on the very tract of land its leaders had originally requested. As legend tells it, the property owner came with trembling hand to sign over the title deed to the church.
Yes, God is in control. Since 1968, as I have attempted to walk with God, on more than one occasion I have had to admit that I don’t have the foggiest idea about what He is up to. He is God and I am not. I don’t understand: infertility or the loss of a child, a chronic or terminal illness, the death of a young mom or dad, and a thousand other things that make zero sense, humanly.
What I do know from the Scriptures is that God has a unique purpose for every person and for everything that happens to us. I have come to the conclusion that either He is the sovereign God, totally in control, or He is not in control at all (which I do not believe at all).
He made us to trust Him, regardless of the circumstances. And that is reflected in the new name of that Methodist church in North Carolina that God moved to solid ground:
Providence United Methodist Church.