The Potter and the Clay: God Has All Authority

After He had risen from the dead, Jesus approached His disciples and said to them: ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.’ Mathew 28:18
All authority. One of the most difficult aspects of our faith is accepting this truth. God has all authority . . . to run His creation as He sees fit, to make decisions according to His design and will, to take what already belongs to Him. Many good believers refuse to accept this. During good times they praise God, worship in church, and do good works. But when the bad times come, the truly life-altering times, these very same people refuse to accept this truth, that God has the authority, the right to do as He has done.
Our unwillingness to accept this truth is a roadblock to the development of our faith. When we choose to question God, the bonds of our relationship become strained. We cannot grow closer to God if we are questioning His actions, and in this we fail to increase in knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10). When this happens we cannot be productive servants to the kingdom. How can we lead others to trust and obedience and the joy of the Lord when we are questioning His will? It is understandable when a Christian wonders ‘Why’. It is not sinful to ask God why. But it is harmful.

This is where a humble servants’ heart comes into play in our faith. To hold a grudge against God, to resent Him and question Him for allowing terrible things to happen is to make war on Him. Romans 5:1 tells us: ‘Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Clearly then we show that we do not have peace with God when we question His decisions.
We would be wise to ask these questions: Doesn’t the creator of the universe have the right to decide how He runs things in His creation? Who am I to reply against God? Does not the potter have power over the clay? (Romans chapter 9).
It requires a deep level of Christian maturity to accept the fact that God knows what He is doing, even in the hard times, even when it makes no sense to us. Job understood this when he said ‘The Lord gives, the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord’. This degree of Christian maturity does not come easy, and indeed is rarely seen these days.
My grandfather, the humblest and most righteous man I have ever had the privilege of knowing, suffered through numerous physical ailments in addition to a descent into Alzheimer’s during the final years of his life. This made no sense to our limited human understanding. Why would a good God allow His faithful servant to suffer? What did it accomplish?
Maybe it was a process that prepared us to be able to help others later through similar struggles. Maybe grandpa touched someone’s life in that place and turned their heart to God when nothing else had worked through that person’s long life. We don’t know. But instead of making war on God, instead of questioning His wisdom, we, by His grace, choose to accept that He knew what He was doing. And so, by grace, we have peace with God. Philippians 2:29 offers this hard truth: ‘For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake.’ Remember that suffering produces in us perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is being poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us’ (Romans 5:4-5).   
There is no future in waging war on God. The creator of the universe has His reasons, and we can either question this divine being or we can take comfort in believing that He doesn’t think like us (Isaiah 55:9), that He has a plan and a reason for everything that He causes or allows to happen, even when it remains a complete and agonizing mystery to us. For great is His love for His people. When we question Him, we are saying ‘I think I know a better way for You to run Your creation’. This sort of arrogance puts up roadblocks between us, and can lead us astray, into the dark hopeless thought patterns of unbelievers.

God has the right. Let us accept this difficult truth and grow in knowledge of God, so that we might find comfort, joy, and peace in His divine design, for if these things be in us, we will be ready and able to share the Light of this world with others.