Does the Lord cause all that happens?

Elizabeth Angle and Gracie Brito were high school sophomores and best friends in Frisco, a suburb north of Dallas. Last Sunday, they were riding on a sled as it was pulled by a Jeep Wrangler. The sled crashed and Elizabeth was killed; Gracie was critically injured and died yesterday.

In a Facebook post, Elizabeth’s mother wrote: “She was a bright light, a fun spirit, a brave soul. We loved her so much. She just got a car and a license and had her whole life ahead of her. It was all taken away so abruptly.” Gracie’s mother called her daughter “a kind and generous soul, full of love, affection, and warmth.” Her family said the days since the tragedy have been “unimaginably difficult.”

I cannot imagine these families’ grief and am so sorry for their loss. I am praying for them, asking God to be their help and peace in these terrible days.

I’m also praying for a mother whose three young sons fell through an icy pond Monday and died. And for the loved ones of those who died in the Challenger tragedy forty years ago yesterday. (For my heartfelt reflections, please see my new website article, “The Challenger disaster and the providence of God.”)

If God is truly sovereign, did he cause their pain?

If not, how can he be truly sovereign?

Either way, how can I trust him to be the Father I hope he is?

“So this is what God’s really like”

There is no biblical doubt that God is indeed sovereign over the universe he created. Jesus taught that not even a sparrow can “fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matthew 10:29).

It only makes sense that an omnipotent being has the power by definition to do whatever he chooses to do. It is therefore unsurprising that the psalmist would declare, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3).

However, I don’t want to believe that my Father causes all tragedy and pain. But just because I don’t want to believe something doesn’t mean it’s not true. And part of me worries that because God is sovereign, he must cause all that happens, including all death and suffering.

In this sense, C. S. Lewis spoke for me when he wrote after the death of his wife,

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

God’s sovereign choice to limit his sovereignty

However:

• Did God not choose to make humans in his image (Genesis 1:27)?
• Does being made in his image not include the same freedom to choose that he possesses (cf. Joshua 24:15)?
• Does God not then need to limit his sovereignty if he is to honor the freedom he gives us (cf. Deuteronomy 30:19)?
• Is it not an expression rather than a denial of his sovereignty if he sovereignly chooses to honor our freedom in this way (cf. 1 Kings 18:21)?

Consider an example.

Paul wrote that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Peter added that God is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). And yet not all people are saved (cf. John 3:18). To the contrary, “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).

This paradox only makes sense if God sovereignly chooses to limit his sovereignty to permit our free will. As a result, though he passionately wants all people to be saved, not all are.

“His mercies never come to an end”

This discussion encourages me to believe that not everything that happens is the intentional will of God. However, let me hasten to add that he has both a perfect will and a permissive will.

Because he is sovereign, he must at least permit all that happens in his creation. From the sparrow that falls to the ground, to the Challenger disaster forty years ago, to the boys who drowned in an icy pond, to the teenagers who perished in a sledding accident, nothing can take place without his permission.

This fact leads me to close with mystery more than certitude, faith more than proof.

I don’t know why the God who permits disaster doesn’t always prevent it. He permits our free will, to be sure, but as with his miraculous delivery of Peter from Herod’s prison (Acts 12:6–11), he sometimes prevents its consequences.

However, as I noted in my website article on the Challenger tragedy, as a fallen and finite creature, I should not expect to understand the perfect and infinite mind of God any better than I do (cf. Isaiah 55:8–9). And the more I need his providence, the less I am likely to understand it, since challenges that call for his help are likely to be so difficult as to call into question his love.

Conversely, if I reject my Father’s love and grace because I do not understand them, I impoverish myself and forfeit his best in my life.

So I will pray honestly, “Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!” (Lamentations 3:19). But then I will say:

This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lᴏʀᴅ never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him” (vv. 21–24).

In what—or whom—is your hope today?

Quote for the day:

“Sooner shall a tender mother sit inattentive to her crying infant than Jesus be an unconcerned spectator of his suffering children.” —John Newton

Our latest website resources:

• Alex Pretti’s death, immigration tensions & how Christians can respond with Dr. Ryan Denison
• Reason for hope after the shooting of Alex Pretti
• A review of “The Body Teaches the Soul” by Justin Earley
• Finding hope after life’s detours
• What is the purpose of the Board of Peace? Trusting God when we cannot see him

Denison Forum

Let’s step away from the news today to discuss the way we consume the news. The Guardian asks, “Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?” Here are some reasons for the question:

• American high school seniors’ scores on math and reading tests have fallen to their lowest levels on record.
• Dependence on AI tools erodes critical thinking skills, harms learning and creativity, and increases isolation and loneliness.
• Research shows that overuse of social media, video games, and other digital platforms impairs executive functioning skills, including memory, planning, and decision-making.
• Short-form videos have been conclusively linked to poorer mental health and cognition.
• “Brain rot” has become such an ubiquitous term that Oxford University Press selected it as its 2024 word of the year.

Andrew Budson, a Boston University neurologist who specializes in memory disorders, explains our problem: we are using technology for the wrong purposes.

“Their brains actually shrink”

Dr. Budson reports that “our brains evolved for social interactions.” As a result, “People who become socially isolated, their brains actually shrink, even if they don’t have a disorder, and people who are socially isolated are at increased risk of developing dementia.”

I would amend his observation to say that our brains “were created for social interactions” by our triune God, who is relational by nature and made us in his image (Genesis 1:27). Nonetheless, Dr. Budson’s point stands: When we use technology in ways that isolate us from others, we misuse our brains. And this is by far the primary way we use technology.

Right now, I am sitting alone in my study as I type these words. You are likely reading or hearing what I write by yourself as well. Even if you watch television or a movie today in the company of others, you are unlikely to be discussing or experiencing it relationally. Earbuds and headphones intentionally block out everything else. Screens we can hold in our hands keep our hands from doing anything else.

And research emphatically shows that such isolation causes our brains to shrink, lose neuroplasticity, and otherwise decline in health and function.

So the answer is to engage more fully with the world around us, or so it would seem.

Not so fast.

“A dangerous network of domination”

Henri Nouwen warned in The Way of the Heart: “Our society is not a community radiant with the love of Christ, but a dangerous network of domination and manipulation in which we can easily get entangled and lose our souls.”

Nouwen then explained how we become so entangled:

“Compulsive” is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated, or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman, or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world.

If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same—more work, more money, more friends.

If being isolated from the world harms our brains, but engaging with the world entangles us in its lostness, what is the way forward?

“Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power”

In The Holiness of God, theologian R. C. Sproul observed:

Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power. The only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy god, an idol made by our own hands. Unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds his holy love in our hearts, unless he stoops in his grace to change our hearts, we will not love him. . . . To love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls.

1. S. Lewis would have agreed. Commenting on Jesus’ sixth beatitude (Matthew 5:8), he noted: “It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.”

So, the way forward seems clear:

1. Recognize our need for the grace by which God changes our hearts and transfigures us with his love (2 Corinthians 5:17).
2. Pray for such transformation daily as we submit to the Spirit who alone can sanctify us (Ephesians 5:18; Romans 12:1).
3. Partner with God by refusing conformity to the world and seeking the “renewal of your mind” in Scripture, prayer, and worship (Romans 12:2).
4. Engage in technology and other isolating activities while in conversation with the Spirit as he guides our minds and hearts (John 14:26).
5. Engage in community while in conversation with the Spirit as he speaks through us to draw us closer to our Lord and thus to each other (cf. Matthew 10:20).

In short, “practice the presence of God,” as Brother Lawrence famously advised. What happens when we do?

“Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lᴏʀᴅ”

The Bible reports that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). The Hebrew for “walked with God” could be translated, “continually conversed and traveled together with the Lord.”

The phrase is used of only one other person: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). I think the latter explains the former: because he “walked” with God, he acquired God’s character and thus was “righteous” and “blameless.”

But an earlier reference explains them both: “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 8). “Found favor” could be translated, “received grace.”

So we are back to our pathway to God’s best: receiving the grace of God leads to walking in the presence of God, which leads to being transformed into the character of God, which leads to (in Enoch’s case and ours one day) being taken into heaven with God.

Will you pray for such transforming grace now?

Quote for the day:

“A Christian is never in a state of completion but always in the process of becoming.” —Martin Luther

Our latest website resources:

• Reason for hope after the shooting of Alex Pretti
• Finding hope after life’s detours
• What is the purpose of the Board of Peace? Trusting God when we cannot see him
• “Owning” Greenland and other legal fictions: Why do we seek to possess what can never be truly ours?
• Greenland explained, Indiana’s championship run, Iran updates, Minnesota tensions & Epstein files

Denison Forum

President Trump announced Monday that he was dispatching his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minnesota amid outrage over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents. He also suggested in a phone call with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that he is open to reducing the number of federal immigration agents in the state, the governor said after the call.

As you know, Mr. Pretti, a US Department of Veterans Affairs ICU nurse in Minneapolis, was killed by ICE agents on Saturday. He was carrying a 9mm handgun for which he had a legal permit. The Department of Homeland Security stated, “The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. . . . Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots.”

However, according to CBS News, video from the scene and witness accounts are “at odds with official statements.” NBC News reports that “some policing experts said the shooting appeared unjustified and one said it amounted to murder.” President Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the administration is “reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”

Whom do you blame for this tragedy?

• Mr. Pretti, whom Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s homeland security adviser, called a “domestic terrorist”?
• ICE agents, whom critics call “inexperienced” and “minimally trained”?
• Mr. Trump, whom Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called upon to “end this operation”?
• Gov. Walz, whom White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused of encouraging “left-wing agitators to stalk and record federal officers in the middle of lawful operations”?
• Democrats who, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), “supported Biden’s open border, which created the mess that now must be cleaned up”?

All of the above? None of the above?

How do you know moon rocks are from the moon?

Unless you have information unavailable to the rest of us, my guess is that you are filtering what you read, hear, and see by what you think you already know. Your prior beliefs regarding Mr. Trump, ICE activities, and Democrats are likely governing your view of the present tragedy.

I’m not accusing you of partisan bias: this is how nearly everyone knows nearly everything they know.

I know that Minneapolis exists because I have been there personally. But I had not met Mr. Pretti, have never met an ICE agent, and have no personal relationship with anyone else in this story. How, then, am I to interpret it apart from what I do know and believe?

My two great-aunts were convinced astronauts never went to the moon, that the TV coverage of Neil Armstrong and the rest of it was staged to steal money from American taxpayers. When I asked them about moon rocks I saw in a museum, they asked, “How do you know they’re from the moon?” I hadn’t thought of that.

We learn new words by associating them with our existing vocabulary. If I told you my “mumblephump” was in the shop for repairs, you wouldn’t know if I was talking about my vehicle, my son’s guitar, or my grandfather’s antique watch, among other options. But if I told you that it needed a new transmission and a brake job, you’d know that I was probably using a strange word for a car. This is because you already know what “transmission” and “brake job” mean.

If you’re an average American, you know about six hundred people. The existence, character, and activities of the other 343 million of us are known to you only through sources who know them better than you do.

Why a greenhouse becomes bright

This matters because our “post-truth” culture has abandoned objectivity for subjectivity, so we have no objective means by which to test our biases. In a media world where subscriptions have replaced advertising revenue, causing outlets to focus on producing content their customers want to purchase, our biases become even more entrenched.

As a result, when divisive tragedies such as Mr. Pretti’s death occur, whatever their actual reasons, we have no way to achieve an unbiased understanding of what happened, much less what to do about it. And so our political and cultural divisiveness continues and deepens.

But there is a way Christians can be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Secularism leaves us with no transcendent hope since we have no source of help but ourselves. Religions across human history offer the opposite: a God or gods who do what they do independent of our agency.

By contrast, the heart of Christianity is the claim that Christ can live in our hearts. As Oswald Chambers noted, “The Holy Spirit will make all that Jesus did effectual in me.” C. S. Lewis agreed, writing in Mere Christianity:

The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

As God makes us “good,” he manifests himself in our minds, hearts, and lives (Galatians 2:20). We can have his wisdom by which to interpret the events of our world if we seek and submit to his Spirit’s guidance (John 14:26). We can have his compassion by which to love those who do not love us (John 13:34). We can have his character by which to demonstrate the radical difference he makes in our lives (Romans 8:29).

Asking your father for money to buy him a present

The key is to recognize how passionately our Father loves us and then to ask his Spirit to manifest his love for our Father in our hearts in response (Galatians 5:22). It’s like a child who asks her father for money to buy him a Christmas present.

When we love our Father with his love, we love others and ourselves in the same way. We then become the change we wish to see in our broken culture. And neither we nor those we influence can ever be the same.

Diadochos of Photiki (c. 400–c. 486) noted:

Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him.

How “deeply aware” of God’s love are you today?

NOTE: Dr. Ryan Denison will offer an in-depth analysis of the recent ICE shootings in his weekly newsletter, The Focus, when it is published later today. I strongly encourage you to subscribe, which you can do here.

Quote for the day:

“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.” —Julian of Norwich (c. 1343–1416)

Our latest website resources:

• What is the purpose of the Board of Peace? Trusting God when we cannot see him
• “Owning” Greenland and other legal fictions: Why do we seek to possess what can never be truly ours?
• Greenland explained, Indiana’s championship run, Iran updates, Minnesota tensions & Epstein files
• Faith and politics, yoga and Christian practice, salvation, and hope in a divided culture
• Is Greenland worth what it will cost the United States?

Denison Forum