In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…
The very first words of the Bible exalt God high above everything that is. If there is anything, God spoke, and it was. At some time far in the past, God put into existence all things which, before then, were not.
Scripture continues with God as an active character through the pages of the Old and New Testaments. He charts Israel’s history and speaks to His chosen servants century after century. Silence comes after Malachi. Then, in a flash of eternal light, He descends onto the scene as Jesus, the Son of God, the Word of God made flesh! For a time, God continues to speak through selected works of His servants which comprise the New Testament today.
And then, silence?
Where did God go?
After the final pages of the New Testament, it may appear that God is somehow less involved in His world. Wouldn’t we hear more about His actions after 100 A.D. if He were as active as He was in the days of Scripture?
What if, instead of the Scriptures as records of God’s only actions, they were records for some of His actions, intended to instruct us to see His eternal power and divine nature always at work?
For example, God chastises Job with a glimpse into God’s role of instructing animals in their ways. Who teaches each ostrich to bury its eggs in the sand but other birds to build nests in nearby trees? Who foreknew that plastic would pervade our world and order things such that some worms and bacteria can feast off our rampant waste? Who blows the wind every which way that continues to defy meteorologists?
The God over Chance
Today, we call occurrences like these chance, a percentage that a certain thing should or should not happen. Chance is a placeholder for forces that we cannot predict, forces higher than us that can only guess with probabilities. Why do we throw an old name (Romans called chance “Fortuna”) at something that has already introduced itself as the God of all heaven and earth?
And more to the point today, why do we not pray to the God who governs all of our world’s happenings even today? Why not pray to the God of percentages to tilt those chances toward our favor? Why stand apart from a Creator who stepped down to show us His great benevolence in Jesus, who made a way through our rebellion back to know Him?