A Longer View

There are times when it is good, and maybe even necessary to step back, sit down, and empty ourselves of all the disturbing stuff which swirls around us.  Maybe this fourth of July is a moment for laying aside our rancorous political debate which leads only to division among us and look at what might be considered the longer view.  Nations are like people.  There are here and then they are gone.  Any serious study of the life of the great nations of the past provide the truth of this observation.  Another thing often forgotten is that God has a hand in nation making and nation breaking.   

The Bible is a sacred writing which reminds us again and again that God is One who uses individuals and nations to accomplish His purpose.  Any study of the Old Testament lifts up this truth.  Psalms 22:28 tells us, "For dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations."  Daniel 4:17 enables us to hear, "...the Most High is sovereign over the kingdom of mortals..."   A word from the gospels tells us of a day still to come when "All the nations will be gathered before Him..."  (Matthew 25:32).   To read the Scripture with the larger view is to see a God who has created and who remains sovereign over all that He has created including the nations.  

There is no way to read the Word without seeing the reality that God uses nations to accomplish His purposes.  One of the problems with which we struggle is we want change now.  We live with more than a little impatience with the slow moving God who seems to be inching His Kingdom forward.  What we can know is that in a world which always seems to be taking two steps back, God is still the One who is in charge and who reigns not only over the nation in which we live, but all the others as well.