Where Was God?

Laura Booz: Hi there. You’re listening to Expect Something Beautiful with Laura Booz. 

Recently, I’ve been studying the book of 2 Samuel in the Bible, and my study guide posed a couple of questions that really stumped me. I’m wondering if I could kind of talk it out with you today? 

So, David had finally become king. He was the king everyone had waited for, a king after God’s own heart. He was anointed by Samuel, foreshadowing Jesus. I assumed this would be an era of peace for Israel. Surely, King David would reign on his throne with perfect wisdom. Surely, Israel would settle down, plant gardens, keep the feasts, and worship God with full and contented hearts. But sadly, this is not what happened. 

Instead, David commits adultery and murder. When David repents, God responds with mercy and judgment. David lives, but his baby dies. We see God’s people shift their loyalty from David to his son Absalom back to David again. 

Instead of enjoying an era of peace, God’s people are wrapped up in turmoil and battle. They die in battle fighting for David; they die in battle fighting against David. In chapter 15 things get so bad that David flees from the palaces, ascends the Mount of Olives, barefoot, head covered, and weeping. 

These years of David’s kingship are terrible. He receives death threats from his own son and his closest advisors. King David spends most of his time navigating conspiracies and feuds. And right in the middle of this, my study guide posed the questions we often ask of the Bible: where is the sovereignty of God in this story, and to what extent is God involved in the affairs of mankind? 

I looked at my Bible, struggling to find God’s name in this story. My heartbeat quickened. Where was He? Where was God in this mess? Come to think of it, where is God in the mess around me in the twenty-first century, with wars and distress and chaos? To what extent is God involved in the affairs of mankind?

That’s when I remembered an important cross-reference to 2 Samuel found in 1 Chronicles, when God makes His covenant with David. Oh, this is so good, David had just offered to build a house—a sturdy place to house the Ark of the Covenant. And God said no thank you. 

In fact, in 1 Chronicles 17:7 he says, 

I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall waste them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will subdue all your enemies.

Moreover, I declare to you that the LORD will build you a house. When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever. 

God is promising David that he would send the Messiah, Jesus. And just like that, truths about God from the rest of Scripture came to mind. I thought of God speaking the universe into motion. God crafting mankind from the dirt of the ground, breathing life into his nostrils, and befriending him in the garden. God clothing Adam and Eve and sending them out of the garden, with the promise to redeem sinful humanity and restore creation.

Then there was God working through every sunrise and sunset, every meeting and marriage, every double helix DNA, every child born, every raindrop and rainbow, every detail of how and why to worship Him. God is working through every victory and every loss. 

I remembered God keeping His word, despite man’s sinful decisions. And I remembered God attending to every graveside and bedside and fireside, knowing every word spoken and inscribed. 

There was God overseeing every detail of Christ’s birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension. God building the Church, person by person, over meals and letters and miracles. God, regenerating the sinner, sowing His Word in good and honest hearts from every generation and every nation.

And there was God working through the ticking of the clock, the beating of our hearts, the air in our lungs, and every day’s tally mark, welcoming us closer and closer to the day when Jesus will appear in the sky and return to us. God is gathering His people to dwell together in a land of peace, forever worshiping the King of kings. 

I looked at the story in 2 Samuel again as David and his son Absalom and all of the peoples of the earth scurried this way and that way. They suddenly seemed so small as they navigated through life in a sinful world. Every selfish or misguided pursuit seemed like dust blowing in the wind, while God Himself moved forward as an unshakeable force of nature. 

I returned to the question in my study guide, where is the sovereignty of God in this story? To what extent is God involved in the affairs of mankind? My face broke out into a huge smile, and I tilted my head back astonished by the truth. To what extent is God involved in the affairs of mankind? To the fullest! In every detail, in every twist and turn, God is exalting Jesus and redeeming mankind. 

Maybe David said it best in his response to God’s covenant in 1 Chronicles. He said, 

There is none like you, O LORD, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making for yourself a name for great and awesome things, in driving out nations before your people whom you redeemed from Egypt? And you made your people Israel to be your people forever, and you, O LORD, became their God. And now, O LORD, let the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house be established forever, and do as you have spoken, and your name will be established and magnified forever, saying, "The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, is Israel's God" and the house of your servant David will be established before you. 

For you, my God, have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him. Therefore your servant has found courage to pray before you. And now, O LORD, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you, for it is you, O LORD, who have blessed, and it is blessed forever.

The question for the people in 2 Samuel, and for you and me, is not to what extent is God involved in the affairs of man, but rather to what extent are we involved in the affairs of God?

You know, it’s easy to get discouraged when we are living in the middle of our stories. Maybe you feel like David, under pressure, getting things wrong so many times, always on the run, it’s helpful in times like that to remember God’s in control of our stories. 

I want to remind you of that at my blog, LauraBooz.com. I write about some of the tough situations in life, when things don’t seem to make sense, when the story isn’t going the way I’d like. I also write about clinging to the truth of the Bible in the middle of those times and looking back and seeing God’s sovereign hand every time. 

You can also get that kind of encouragement by listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She takes you to the Scripture each week day and reminds you that heaven rules, even when the world seems like it’s in chaos. To hear the Revive Our Hearts podcast, check out ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Expect Something Beautiful is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.