I struggle to sleep at night. I always have. I’m a very light sleeper, so it doesn’t take much to wake me up (and usually, it’s because of our cat). My mind tends to be very active, even when I give myself appropriate wind-down time. For the longest time—before I added medication to my life—I would manage this by staying up until I was ready to pass out. Admittedly, this is not the healthiest approach, but it’s what I could do.
My struggles with sleep are rarely connected to anxiety.1 But I understand people losing sleep because of anxiety. And there are good reasons to feel anxious in this particular moment. A chaotic political climate. The destabilizing actions of the current administration. Uncertain economic conditions and an ever-increasing cost of living. The continued erosion of trust between institutions and individuals. It’s all a mess. And, honestly, if Christ hadn’t gotten a hold of me 20 years ago, I’d probably be just as fearful as everyone else. But he did. And because he did, I know a truth that helps me sleep at night: I know God is in control.
The Good News of God Being in Control
Sometimes, when Christians talk about God being in control, they use it as a platitude. A well-meaning but empty comfort. But from beginning to end, the Bible encourages us to not simply acknowledge but cling to this reality. Genesis’s opening words—”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (1:1 NET)—and all that follows were written to establish this reality for us. All creation belongs to him. He establishes how it functions and determines its limits. God rules over it all. He imbues it with purpose; there is a reason it all exists.
I get that some people have a hard time with even the world control in relation to God. Some—maybe even you reading this—might the word control and interpret it as coercion. It seems at odds with the image of a loving God. Yet, God’s rule over the universe is central to the story of the Bible; it’s one of the core themes of Scripture. And it is good news for us.
If God is in control, then nothing is meaningless. Nothing takes him by surprise, not even the mindbogglingly evil actions of people who profess to know him. Nothing can thwart his purposes, and nothing can separate us from his love for us in Christ—not even us (Romans 8:38-39). Even if we’re prone to forget.
The Tension We Feel and the Hope We Have
Even when we hold onto this truth, our experience of the world often seems to conflict with it. The world seems completely out of control at times. And as a result, we feel this tension that makes us question, well, everything. But it especially challenges our belief in God’s rule over the universe. Is God really in control? Is he even good? Why isn’t he doing something about what’s happening?
And the truth is, we don’t always get the answers to these questions. We exist in the world like Job, trying to grasp something too big for us.2 Something that goes beyond the limits of our comprehension.
So how can something that is too big to comprehend, something that creates so much tension, let me sleep at night? It’s this: Because God is in control, I am not in this moment by accident. The fact that I’m a Canadian living in the United States at this particular societal moment is not a mistake. I am here in this time and place for a reason. I’m here in an over-churched and under-gospeled part of the world to make Jesus known, both in my words and in my conduct. To have compassion on those who feel confused, scared, and lost, and the means at my disposal to pursue justice for those who struggle. To create a home that is a safe place for people who live in chaos to find rest—and to know Christ.
Wherever you are, God has a reason for you being there. It isn’t by accident. And the chaos we see isn’t a sign that he’s taken his hand off the wheel of the universe. It means there’s an opportunity for you and me to put the hope of the gospel on display for all to see.
- It’s an unfortunate side effect of the way ADHD and autism present themselves. ↩︎
- This is not to suggest that we should, therefore, sit down and be quiet. ↩︎
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash