The Lord of History

One of the great comforts for Christians is knowing that Jesus is the Lord of History and that His word the Bible, is the infallible source of history.

We’re not frantic about lowering the core temperature of the planet. We like the sun, and we don’t begrudge others enjoying their bacon, beer and a multitude of children.

We are aware of the fights, the floods, and the suffering. But we are not overcome because we understand what these things are for.

We grieve, our hearts break and we often lose sleep. But we do not lose hope. We worry, sure, and sometimes we worry about the wrong things.

But we do not lose heart.

Our Christian optimism is not grounded in a denial of the battle. It’s grounded in knowing where the true battle lies and the firm belief that we’re winning.

Our battleground is not equal pay, equal rights or equal outcomes. We have no need to march around Caesar’s palace on account of taxation, lumberjacking or baby seals.

Our battle is with sin in the human heart and therefore we petition God in Christ, whom we are confident is in a position to answer.

The worldly man or women doesn’t share this optimism. And rightly so. They can only appeal to the other characters in the story. Our appeal is to the author.

Take any headline in any given week and the news is always bad and the threats are ever-increasing.

But we have other sources, and those sources tell a better story. We have news from the front line, and it is good news.

The good news is that despite the threats and the fears, the world you and I live in is going where Jesus is taking it – and He is taking it somewhere beautiful; somewhere good.

Jesus, the Lord of history, the Author of life, has written the story and it is finished. Not only that, but He has written you into the drama. He is bent on making all things new, and one of those things is you.

However you envisage it, all of our attempts to lay hold of paradise on earth have proved to be futile and fleeting. We fight all the wrong wars against all the wrong people over all the wrong things.

Only Jesus, the Lord of history, can satisfy the paradise we long for. He can and will do it, for He wrote the book on it. And this world, from beginning to end, is that book.