“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
(Matthew 1:1-17)
Read: Read Matthew 1:1-17
Devotion: Have you ever thought about how little of your life is in your control? Even the most regimented and disciplined person, someone who makes a tight schedule every day and does their best to keep it, is in control of relatively very little in their life.
For instance, say you have a big project at work that you need to complete. You plan to wake up early so that you can beat traffic, get to work before anyone else, and get cracking on your project. But soon after you get on the freeway, you find yourself ensnared in bumper-to-bumper traffic because there was an accident a couple miles up the road. It had been raining and someone was driving recklessly. Now you get in late to work and as soon as you get to your desk all the lights in the building go out due to the rainstorm. They don’t come back on until after lunchtime. Half a day that you had intended to spend on your project is gone and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.
That’s just one scenario out of a million that we could imagine. As much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, much of what happens to us and around us in our life is outside of our control. None of it is not outside of God’s control, however.
There is nothing outside of God’s control, whether that is an elephant or a molecule. God didn’t just create the earth, sit back, and let it run. On the contrary, God actively governs and sustains his creation at every moment (Heb 1:3). He has purposed everything that will ever happen—from wars to stubbed toes—to bring about the fulfillment of his plan of redemption which he decreed before the ages begun (Eph 1:3-14).
In theological terms, this is called God’s providence. God provides for, sustains, and maintains his creation. All things are working out his will. Things only happen because he directly commands it or allows it to come to pass. In this way, we can divide God’s providence up in two categories: his direct providence, which describes his miracles and his other direct interactions with his creation, and his indirect providence, which would include the laws of nature, man’s conscience, governments, and all the other things God imbued and established in his creation so that it runs in a particular way.
It is his indirect providence that I am emphasizing in this devotional thought today. As you read through Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17, you probably recognized many names like Abraham, Isaac, David, and the other heroes of the Old Testament. Many of those people had their lives altered and changed and directed through God’s direct providence. God told Abraham where he should move. God chose David to be his king over Israel. God answered Hezekiah’s prayer and killed 185,000 in one night when they besieged Jerusalem.
Even these men, however, spent most of their lives like us, making an infinite amount of seemingly insignificant decisions. Yet, none of those decisions were insignificant because through God’s indirect providence, their decisions eventually led to the fullness of time where God the Son took on a human nature and was born a man from the line of David just as God decreed before the ages began and promised in time (Rom 1:1-5; Gal 4:4-5).
Think about this: Why did Boaz take a liking to Ruth? As far as we know, God didn’t directly move on Boaz’s heart to take kindness on Ruth and then to redeem and marry her, thereby becoming the father of Obed who fathered Jesse who fathered David the king. That is God’s indirect providence at work. God ordained that Boaz would like Ruth, and he ordered his creation so that their acquaintance and eventual marriage would come about. Wonderfully, their marriage and offspring ultimately lead to the Incarnation and the redemption of his people through the death of his Son.
And that’s just one event in the lifetime of just one person on that list. We could have also looked at the event from Ruth’s perspective and discovered the same thing. This truth of God’s indirect providence should fill our hearts with confidence and hope. No matter what may happen to us, no matter what trials this life will bring that are completely outside of our control, they are not outside of God’s control. More than that, they were and are being purposed by God to fulfill his will. A will, that if we are in Christ, is working out for our good (Rom 8:28).
Ponder and Pray: Consider how God has providentially worked in your life. Are there events that now, looking back, you can see God’s hand at work in your life? Finish your time by thanking God for his good and sovereign governance over his creation.
