“Sovereignty, God’s sovereignty, is one of the most difficult things for people of faith to live out in everyday routines. But we have no choice: God is Sovereign. God rules. Not only in our personal affairs but in the cosmos. Not only in our times and places of worship but in office buildings, political affairs, factories, universities, hospitals—yes, even behind the scenes in saloons and rock concerts. It’s a wild and extravagant notion, to be sure. But nothing in our Scriptures is attested to more frequently or emphatically.
“Yet not much in our daily experience confirms it. Impersonal forces and arrogant egos compete for the last word in power. Most of us are knocked around much of the time by forces and wills that give no hint of God. Still, generation after generation, men and women of sound mind continue to give sober witness to God’s sovereign rule. One of the enduring titles given to Jesus is “King.”
“So how do we manage to live believingly and obediently in and under this revealed sovereignty in a world that is mostly either ignorant or defiant of it?
“Worship shaped by an obedient reading of Scripture is basic.
We submit to having our imaginations and behaviors conditioned by the reality of God rather than by what is handed out in school curricula and media reporting.
Eugene pETERSON
“In the course of this worshipful listening, the books of Kings turn out to provide essential data on what we can expect as we live under God’s sovereign rule.”
—Eugene Peterson Excerpt from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language—Introduction to the books of 1 and 2 Kings
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