[Ohio]

Regarding the "sovereignty of God," my recent study of Job helped me to understand the problem of evil and suffering. My NIV Study Bible had a great commentary on the opening chapter of Job. Here is a segment ...

... The relationship between God and man is not exclusive and closed. A third party intrudes, the great adversary. Incapable of contending with God hand to hand, power pitted against power, he is bent on frustrating God's enterprise embodied in the creation and centered on the God-man relationship. As tempter he seeks to alienate man from God, as accuser he seeks to alienate God from man. His all-consuming purpose is to drive an irremovable wedge between God and man, to effect an alienation that cannot be reconciled.

In the story of Job, the author portrays the adversary in his boldest and most radical assault on God and the godly man in the special and intimate relationship that is dearest to them both. When God calls up the name of Job before the accuser and testifies to the righteousness of this one on the earth -- this man in whom God delights -- Satan attempts with one crafty thrust both to assail God's beloved and to show up God as a fool.

True to one of his modes of operation, he accuses Job before God. He charges that Job's godliness is evil. The very godliness in which God takes delight is void of all integrity. It is the worst of all sins. Job's godliness is self-serving; he is righteous only because it pays. If God will only let Satan tempt Job by breaking the link between righteousness and blessing, he will expose the righteous man for the sinner he is.

It is the adversary's ultimate challenge. For if the godliness of the righteous man in whom God delights can be shown to be the worst of all sins, then the chasm of alienation stands between them that cannot be bridged. Then even redemption is unthinkable, for the godliest of men will be shown to be the most ungodly. God's whole enterprise in creation and redemption will be shown to be radically flawed, and God can only sweep it all away in awful judgment.

Perhaps better than passing off all Christian difficulty to Lee's expression, "it must be sovereign of God," which phrase exists no where in the Bible, that I could find anyways, we should focus on actual concepts of encouragement from His word. For one, the scripture emphasizes the trials or difficulties which we all must pass thru. For example, James says count it all joy, that trials prove our faith. Peter says the proving of our faith is more precious than gold, and these trials are fiery ordeals, not to be considered strange to us. Paul considered these all to be a momentary lightness working an eternal weight of glory.