“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 52
The universe is governed by personal law. It is not governed by impersonal forces. Up to and including gravity, everything operates the way it does because it is the will of our Father in heaven.
Economic downturns, hardships, cash flow problems, etc. are not the result of a big, impersonal machine called “the economy” grinding away. We may study the patterns in the economy, and ought to, but what we are actually studying is the “case law” of God’s decrees and overseeing providence. One man goes through a tight time, and he curses the impersonal forces that are working him over, or he sits back stoically and simply takes it. Another man is suffering because of his own folly and misjudgments, and he finds it most convenient to blame these impersonal others.
The godly pattern and response is to recognize that God sends such times of testing so that we will learn to trust Him. And when we trust Him, this reveals the fact that we are not there because of some antecedent sin. When Israel was gathered on the banks of the Red Sea, water lapping at their feet, and Pharaoh’s army at their back, they were not in this position because they had done something wrong. When Abraham was (as he thought) about to lose Isaac through his radical obedience, he was not in that fix because of disobedience. This is the way of God: on the mount of the Lord it will be provided. Judging from the way God tells stories among His people, it appears that He loves cliffhangers.