No matter what is weighing on your heart as you look at the world around you, we pray these words will help you rest in the One who holds everything in His hands.
“Your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you
acknowledge that Heaven rules.”
—Daniel 4:26
Heaven Rules.
No phrase pulses more frequently in my mind and heart than this one. It’s on the screensaver photo that pops up every time I look at my phone. It’s printed on the mug I use each morning for my tea. It’s featured on artwork hanging in my study. It’s engraved on a gold necklace hanging around my neck, a gift from a dear friend who is battling terminal cancer.
“Heaven rules” is a right-sizing truth—putting our view of God, our view of ourselves, and our view of our problems in proper perspective.
I love being surrounded by reminders of this simple but profound truth. It has become for me an overarching, undergirding meta-theme, foundational to how I view all of Scripture and all of life. And over and over again, when I have found myself in tumultuous waters, it has been both an anchor and a life preserver for my soul.
A Right-Sizing Truth
By “Heaven rules,” of course, I mean “God rules.” The God of heaven rules. He rules over every tide of history, over every king and kingdom, over every activity we undertake, over every person and part of His creation. “Heaven rules” is a right-sizing truth—putting our view of God, our view of ourselves, and our view of our problems in proper perspective. It’s a truth meant to instill healthy fear within every proud heart that aims to be its own ruler and that believes we humans can determine our own direction and destiny.
That’s how Heaven’s rule corrects us, and we’re crazy to think we don’t need it. God is kind, not cruel, in reminding us who’s in charge and in doing it at whatever cost He knows is necessary to get our distracted attention. None of us really wants to find out what would happen if He weren’t in charge!
But this same truth that corrects us is also intended to comfort us. To reassure and free us. To catch us and keep us. “Heaven rules” means He is sovereign over everything that touches us, that nothing comes to us unbidden by His desire to use it for our good and for His glory and for the greater things He created us to be part of. He is ruler over every diagnosis and prognosis, over all incomes and outcomes, over the most daunting challenges as well as the most seemingly trivial details of our lives.
Comfort and Courage
This truth that is powerful enough to take down the great is also powerful enough to bear up the least of us, both in our private ordeals and as we face the world that seems to be imploding around us. We can take comfort as we walk on this earth because of our Father’s rule from heaven. Comfort and courage—for “Heaven rules” does not call for a passive acceptance of fate; it comes with the promise of grace for the battle. When we feel we just can’t withstand any more pressure, problems, or pain, the awareness of God’s rule infuses us with supernatural strength. It enables us to live with contented, cemented clarity through the chaos and the ugly fallout of a fallen world, through struggles and circumstances that make us want to run away in panic or curl up in despair. We find the courage to patiently, even joyfully, persevere in the assurance that Heaven rules.
A Single Lens
How I have come to cling to these two words from Daniel’s long-ago conversation with the Babylonian king. And how I have grown to love them. In fact, if you were to look through my Bible or through my journals, texts, emails, and stray pieces of paper scattered throughout my home and study, you might see scribbled here and there two letters that have become part of the warp and woof of my life: HR.
“Heaven rules.” I can’t recall a time when I didn’t know and believe this theological truth at some level, thanks to parents who taught and lived it out in our home as I was growing up. But increasingly, throughout my adulthood and even more so in recent years, this way of viewing the complexities and crises of life in this broken world has captured my heart. It has become a lens through which I see and process, well, everything. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t speak of it or share it in some fashion with someone else, some person who’s gasping for air amid the churning white water of their own worries or questions or fears or difficulties. Just minutes ago, in fact, I had occasion to remind a dear friend of this reassuring truth in a phone conversation.
“Heaven rules,” to me, is not some nebulous adage confined to the unseen realms beyond time and space. It reminds us that our God in heaven is actively controlling and working through every single happening, event, and circumstance taking place on the earth, and He is doing it to accomplish His good, eternal, redemptive purposes.
He is doing it despite whatever you may hear concerning the state of our world while watching or scrolling through the news of the day.
He is doing it despite whatever pops up as you check your email or social media feeds after you emerge from a long meeting.
He is doing it despite the nervousness that’s ticking under your wristwatch while you’re perched in yet another doctor’s office or hospital waiting room, listening for your name to be called.
Heaven is still ruling. Heaven is always ruling.
I realize it doesn’t always seem that way. It may appear, at times, that just the opposite is true. On any given news day, it can feel like our world is spinning out of control, that evildoers are winning the day, and that God is helpless (or unwilling) to do anything about it. Our news feeds were recently flooded with reports of havoc and even genocide taking place in Ukraine. Does Heaven rule in this corner of the world that is being reduced to rubble?
On a more personal level, it may seem that God is dismissive toward your situation, sluggish to act, even coldly unconcerned about matters weighing heavily on your mind and heart, difficulties that distract and distress you and sabotage your joy.
But for those who “know their God” (Dan. 11:32), not even the most dreaded, drastic, or deathly occurrences can steal their hope and confidence in Him. All will be well, even though at the moment nothing seems to be well. This truth is unshakable, despite any and all indications to the contrary. Even when storms are raging within and around us, you and I can sleep in peace each night, and each morning we can awaken to renewed comfort and courage because of this immutable, irrefutable reality.
Because Heaven rules.
This article was adapted from Heaven Rules by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2022). Used by Permission.
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