Though I am not going to quote the whole chapter here, I invite you to take some time and read Psalm 139. This Psalm heralds the sovereignty of God. It shows us that nothing is unknown to Him and that no one is unknown to Him and that nothing in the cosmos happens outside of His sovereign will.
The late R.C. Sproul once said, “God has not left one maverick molecule in the universe.” In other words, no stray monkey wrenches to toss into the gears of His sovereign plans.
Proverbs 16:4 reminds us that not only good but also evil are under His control, “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”
I recently had a conversation with a friend about the sovereignty of God, a man who recently lost his son in a tragic car accident. Part of our conversation surrounded two verses in the Bible that tell us that God determined how long we each would individually live on this earth, and he did this before we were even born.
Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” In the same regard, Job 14:5, “Man’s days are determined, and the number of his months is with You, and You have appointed his limits that he cannot pass.”
From our present vantage point, we have a hard time reconciling the sovereignty of God. How is it that both good and evil play into His plan? That and a hundred other questions fill our minds to place that we just want to ask, “Why?” One day the fog will lift and all of our why questions will be answered in a moment.
In his letter to the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known” (I Corinthians 13:12). And the same thought was also written by the Apostle John, “Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know this, that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (I John 3:2).
Someone has compared life to a tapestry. On earth we see the bottom side of the tapestry. From that vantage point one only sees hanging strings and knots with little discernable design or symmetry. But one day, God is going to walk us around to the other side and we will be blown away by the beauty and grandeur of the pattern of God’s holy plan. Instantly, all things will become clear, we will know and see how every fragment of our life and the life in the world around us, fit perfectly into God’s sovereign plan.
In light of these things, my friend who has just recently buried his only son, said to me, “I won’t ask why when I see Jesus. I will say Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. Your ways were perfect.”
At the moment we first see Jesus face to face, we will see perfectly, we know perfectly, and we will applaud the ways and the wisdom of our God.