Proverbs 16:9 ESV
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+16%3A9&version=ESV]
Why does life happen the way it does? Why do some acts brings one result and some another? Why do we hurt or love or enjoy or despair? Life has a thousands bits and pieces in it, and we walk through it, often, with eyes squinted as close to shut as possible, whether from fatigue or simple lack of care. We don’t ask, for instance, this vital question: why does anything work at all? Strictly speaking, believing that life can be understood tomorrow by its behavior in the past is a fallacious state of being, deriving a principle by induction. Strictly speaking, all we have is a probability, a probability based on the unproven assertion that the future will use the same mechanisms as the past. The Scripture provides an answer, though: from the Lord is all the fruit of life and all its persistence.
God is a sure and steady anchor. Numbers 23:19 declares as much: “God is not man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?” This is the foundation, of course, for our trust in His prophecy; it is the foundation also for our trust in the salvation it gives. It is more than this, though: it is a promise which gives us confidence that the world will persist by the same rules of logic and morals and relationship which it has persisted by in the past, in awaiting the consummation of all things.
At first blush, I admit, this seems a useless assurance. We should already know this. Consider, though, what proof we have that the rules of reality don’t change. We look to science, perhaps, but it becomes clear that we are forever changing the rules we believe in there, modifying them towards some standard we don’t quite perceive. Some rules have been steady for a long, long time, of course, so we have that much assurance. We look to human history- sociology, individual relationships, religion, and more- and we find suddenly that no rule quite works. A very complex system of rules may approximate, and patterns may crop up, but it’s all very messy. We look to math, and here at last we have something solid. Math works the same way through the entirety of history, even if we keep adding new stuff to it. Sometimes we go a bit astray, but the errors are forgivable and esoteric. What has been, we argue, will be.
Will it?
In all this, we make a single essential assumption: the future will reflect the past. Perfect consistency in the past makes no guarantee for the future unless this premise is accepted. But why should we accept the premise? It has been true in the past, but without it, the past cannot promise its continued truth. It makes intuitive sense, but that might be a coincidence. In strict logic, we have no right to presume that reality will continue in a straight line, not in our own experience, only a pragmatic argument that it has worked so far to assume such.
God, though, created the world, and therefore He provides for the Christian a steady base of reality. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and therefore the world persists according to His sovereign will (Gen. 1:1). Because He is sovereign and because He is immutable, we can be assured that the basic facts of reality will persist, being founded on Him and His decree. Thus logic, existence, and morality are all assured. The world and we in it exist because He desires; the world and we in it follow a singular logic because His nature is logic and self-consistency; the world and we in it have a moral weight because His authority is laid upon His creation.
Yet all this shall someday pass away. All the steps of man which the Lord establishes upon this earth will fade into dust (Matt. 6:19). Amidst this fate, Christ, the second person of the Godhead, offers true eternity; He brings a new creation. Thus of Christ Daniel 7:14 declares, “And to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” This plan of the God-man’s heart has been established and shall be established in its fullness; in this plan of His heart we will find the only steps which last till eternity, the steps of a “a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). The steps of the righteous man are in Christ’s triumph established eternally.
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
