God is NOT a Good Fairy

We've been talking about God's goodness and sovereignty in light of "bad" things happening to and around us this week (and I always place bad in quotes, signifying that these things are not objectively bad from God's perspective, even though from our limited and humanly perspective, they might seem so).  If you missed the previous posts, please take a minute to check them out here and here.  In keeping with the previous discussions, I believe that we, especially we as God's people, often have an unbiblical worldview about "bad" things happening to us and give Satan WAY too much credit for such things.  I liken this distorted worldview to viewing God as the three good fairies in the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty.  If you do not have a little girl in your household, you might not be familiar with this classic tale (I on the other hand am raising two little girls and, in addition to all of my own personal childhood viewings, have watched this Disney movie a BILLION times to date...but I digress...). At any rate, let me give you a quick recap, just in case you need a refresh.

The movie opens with the birth of Princess Aurora, the only daughter to the royal King and Queen.  The couple proclaimed a holiday for their subjects to pay homage to the princess, and at this gathering Princess Aurora is betrothed to marry Prince Philip.  Among the guests are three good fairies who bestow gifts to the princess, such as the gift of beauty and song.  However, before the third fairy can give her gift to the child, the evil fairy Maleficent crashes the party and is angry that she was not invited.  Because of this disgrace, she curses the Princess to die on her 16th birthday by touching the spindle of a spinning wheel and leaves the party.  The guests are horrified and saddened at this sudden change of events.  Fortunately, the third fairy still has her gift to give!  Although she cannot undo Maleficent's curse, she does change the curse to entail sleeping, rather death, from which Aurora may be awakened by love's true kiss.

So, often, we too think that this is how our Almighty Sovereign God operates!  Satan creates bad to happen in our lives for his purposes of evil...such as tornadoes, earthquakes, cancer, death of loved ones, financial ruin, etc...and God provides the counter-attack to "soften the blow," so to speak, in our lives.  Or we think Satan orchestrates disaster and God simply "uses" it for good.  However, Scripture does not speak to this!  Instead, it speaks to God creating and purposing "bad" things to happen in our lives for our ultimate good and His glory (Isaiah 45:7, Amos 3:6).  Now, lest we be naive and uninformed, Scripture is clear that Satan does stand in opposition to God's good purposes and IS on a mission to steal, kill, and destroy us (John 10:10, 1 Peter 5:8).  However, he has NO ultimate authority in our lives and in our world and he knows it!  His time is short and limited, as his ultimate demise is certain to come at the end of the age (Rev 20:10)!  The only authority he has is what we hand over to him in our lives--the footholds we give him with regard to sin in our hearts (Eph 4:27).  We must be on guard as believers, wearing our full armor of God, ready to do battle with Satan through the authority of Christ, with the Truth of God's Word through prayer (Eph 6:10-18).  We are exhorted to RESIST the devil and submit our hearts and lives FULLY to God (and I would add that the WAY we resist the devil is BY submitting to God, James 4:7).  But let us NOT be swayed to give Satan the "credit" for orchestrating "bad" things in this world by any sovereign authority that must then be "constrained" by God and the prayers of the saints.  No...that is not Bibical truth!  That, my friend, is life according to Walt Disney...and let us NEVER get the two confused!