Guest contributor, 28 March 2020

In times of difficulty we often take comfort from thoughts like these: ‘God is in control’; ‘this painful set of circumstances is God’s will for my life’.

But why should such thoughts be comforting? The mere fact that a situation is under someone’s control does not necessarily make it better. If a masked man breaks into your house and is holding a gun to your head, you do not say to yourself, ‘Everything is fine; the man is in control of that trigger; it can only be pulled if it is his will to pull it, so I am perfectly safe’!

Why, then, is it comforting that God is in control of our lives, and that his will dictates everything that happens to us? The main answer, of course, is that God is good! He is not like the masked man. He is ‘the God of all grace’ (1 Pet. 5:10), the one who is ‘rich in mercy’ (Eph. 2:4) and ‘heals the broken-hearted’ (Ps. 147:3). That is the kind of being who controls our lives! We can trust his sovereign will because we know his beautiful character.

However, Isaiah 53:10 provides a further reason we may trust God’s will. The whole of Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, particularly his sufferings at Golgotha. The passage uses terrifying language. Jesus, it says, is going to be ‘crushed’. Verse 5 explains the reason for the crushing – ‘our iniquities’. Verse 10, moreover, reveals what lies behind this crushing of Jesus for our iniquities – God’s will! ‘It was the will of Yahweh to crush him’. 

For me, that is the supreme reason I can trust God’s will. I do not know any more that you do what the coming days (let alone the coming years and decades) hold. I have no idea where coronavirus will leave us all. I cannot foretell the implications for our world, for this nation, for my own life. But I know this: Like everything else that ever happens, coronavirus has come on the scene because it is the will of God; and two thousand years ago it was the same will of God that his own Son should be crushed in my place for my eternal salvation!

If God’s will once contained that awesome sacrifice for my sins, then his will is safe. I need not be afraid of it. There is nothing dark or sinister about God’s will. I can trust it. 

Am I saying that our lives will therefore be easy – that we shall be exempt from coronavirus and its ilk? No. God’s will may throw up events which are very painful for us. We may not understand why those events should be God’s will for our lives. Considered by themselves, they may suggest a malevolent streak to God’s will – a suggestion Satan will endeavour to exploit. But we must not consider those events by themselves. We must view them in the light of Golgotha. Golgotha is our truest window into God’s will. The cross declares irrefutably that God’s will is stunningly loving; and those painful events we experience, therefore, must somehow, mysteriously, chime with that.

So, is it comforting that everything in our lives – indeed, everything in history – arises from the will of God? Yes! Yes, because God’s character is infinitely lovely. And yes, because God’s will has shown its true colours at Calvary. It is a will that aims only at our eternal good.