Thankful Theology Thursdays #5- Who is really in control?

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it;
Psalm 24:1


We are memorizing Psalm 24 as part of our homeschool curriculum. We are nearly there and each day as we read this aloud(my almost seven year old can read it himself now by the way) this verse stands out more and more to me.
We are living in very crazy and uncertain times, but it is not the first time the world has seen circumstances that were scary and confusing. Even in the short 232 years our country has been a country we have been through and triumphed over many adversities that could have destroyed us as a nation. But like the Israelites wondering in the desert, it is so easy to forget all the miracles God has already shown us.
We must understand who is really in control. God does not let leaders be put in power if He did not have a plan to use it to His own glory. Like in the days of Rome's occupation of Israel, people are expecting the Messiah to come in on a white horse ready to overthrow and set and everything right. What we have to remember though is God doesn't always work like that. Sometimes he lets people have what they think they want. Sometimes He lets them have it over and over again until they have come to the end of the road and realize they were on a path that led to sorrow and enslavement. He let Israel have their idols and then he let the Babylonians have their Hebrew slaves.
We must be careful not to jump to a dangerous opinion that God is cruel to let these things happen to his children. What parent does not try to save their young ones from at least some of the consequences of their inevitable mistakes? Why would our Father in heaven allow us to reap all that we sow?
We must remember Romans 8:28.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

It is this verse that always helps me to make sense of all the chaos and confusion.
If I had only one verse to claim as my life verse, it would be this one. They say hindsight is always 20/20. If you look deeper you'll see it is more than that. Events are interconnected. Paths are intertwined. The illustration I like to use is that of a giant three-dimensional puzzle that spans both time and space. Each piece fits into the other and is part of the whole thing. We are only allowed to see parts of the whole thing. If we look carefully we can see part of the past and how those pieces fit together. I doubt our finite minds could comprehend all of it. It is good thing that God's mind is infinite though. What we cannot see is the future parts of the puzzle and how they connect to the past ones, but God can. What's more is not only can God see the whole puzzle, he designed it and created each of the pieces!
Each of those pieces isn't finite either. The free will God endowed each of us brings a liquid fluidity to each piece and the puzzle as a whole and yet God knows how to keep it together. The quote that is on the bottom of all the emails I send from my art school address says it very well, in the context of a master weaver overseeing his workers. "Our master is such a great artist, that he uses our mistakes to improve the beauty of the pattern."
Let's return to Romans 8:28 for a second though because there is kind of a catch. Paul tells us that God works for the good of those who love God. Do you love God? He works good for those who are called according to his purpose. Are you called according to his purposes or your own? Those are the questions I must ask myself when I look at the world around me and begin to get afraid.
Why should I ever be afraid if I personally know the puzzlemaker and am loved and called according to his purpose?