Is God in Charge?
Jack Radcliffe
11/17/2009

The news seems pretty grim: chaos, war, economic instability, nuclear threat, natural disasters, so much uncertainty, and fewer people believing in God. There are plenty of people delivering the bad news every day. Makes you wonder what God is doing. Has God checked out?

A pillar of Christian theology is that God is all powerful (theologians use the term “omnipotent”). The one who spoke the universe into existence and breathed life into being is supposed to be engaged with his creation bringing peace, right? 

God’s chosen people, Israel, often wondered this too. Their Temple in the center of Jerusalem was the center of their life and worship. It was the focus of their relationship with God. One time in particular, the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed, and Israel’s king was taken into exile. They desperately needed God to show them that he was in control. To them, it looked like God had lost to the Babylonian gods. As far anyone in Babylon knew, the king controlled the world.

In Daniel 4:17-29, the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, had a dream that bothered him so much that he needed someone to tell him what it meant. He called on his fortune tellers, but they couldn’t interpret it. He then called Daniel, a loyal Jewish servant.

The dream involved a big, strong, beautiful, fruitful tree—the symbol of the power of the Babylonian empire—being cut down to a stump by an angel. Its meaning disturbed Daniel. It was bad news, so he hated to deliver it to someone he greatly respected. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom would fall so that everyone would know that the one true God rules. To us, it doesn’t seem to make sense, but in God’s wisdom, He gave Babylon their power over Israel to work out his will in their lives. Still, Israel wasn’t seeing how God could be using their enemy Babylon for his own purposes.

When things get tough, we have a hard time seeing God’s power too. We tend to turn to our own ideas or to the most popular ideas for answers when we have doubts, questions, and uncertainties. Often, the answers are found outside of ourselves, sometimes even in Babylon. Instead, we often look in the wrong places for assurance of God’s presence and control during uncertain times.

There are a lot of people right now wondering about where they and we as a nation stand with God. For a long time we’ve looked to the security of political structures, a strong military, or a vibrant economy to be the signs of God’s favor, reassuring us that he still in control, that our relationship with him is strong.

Evidence of God’s power and presence has nothing to do with economic stability or political influence in the world. Could he use those things for the good of His people? Yes. Yet just as he worked through the dream of a pagan king, God let both the king and his people know that what He says will come to be, that He is in charge. He speaks the same message to us in ways perhaps not so obvious to us.

Our only hope is in the unchanging, merciful character of God, who rules, who loves us, and who gives us the opportunity to respond to him by faith. God entrusted Daniel, a faithful servant, with the responsibility of revealing this reality. Daniel is not where you’d think to go for such an important message. Yet throughout history, God chose to use His faithful servants rather than institutions and economic structures to proclaim his messages that fulfill their hope, to demonstrate that He has not abandoned them, and to remind them that He is still Lord of all. I believe those same sorts of people exist today and are present in our lives every day. They’re not necessarily those who occupy pulpits or radio shows. Right in our own communities are people who love God and walk with him faithfully. From them we’ll hear some pretty good news and be assured that despite the bad news, God is in charge.

Jack Radcliffe is a husband and father, pastor and ministry consultant with Youth Ministry Architects in Nashville, TN, an adjunct professor at Martin Methodist College, and a seminar presenter for Parenteen (www.parenteen.com). He has an MDiv from Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio and a DMin in Youth and Family Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary.