This week has been a very long and exhausting week. I typically update this blog everyday through the week with main articles appearing on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday while DBG Spotlight appears on Wednesday and Friday. However, due to some complications yesterday with my oldest daughter’s health, I was forced to postpone until today.
Last Sunday while I was preparing to preach the evening sermon, my wife called to inform me that our youngest child was being taken to the hospital due to breathing issues from Croupe and undiagnosed asthma issues. After spending the night in the hospital, our son was released the following day. I returned to the office on Tuesday and had a fairly normal week – until yesterday. I woke up at about 5:45am and went downstairs to have coffee and read. This is a typical pattern for me in the morning hours before the house turns into a mini ant colony crawling about with little mouths begging for breakfast at around 7:30am.
At about 6:40am, I heard a loud noise from upstairs that included an initial loud thud followed by some additional banging. I immediately got up and went upstairs to find Karis, my oldest daughter who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last year, on the floor in the midst of a seizure. What happened next was a full scale operation of my wife and I working to save our daughter’s life. My oldest son helped corral our other children into a bedroom while we worked on her in the hallway of our home. After we gave her an emergency shot in her thigh and had her transported to the hospital by ambulance, she started to bounce back in route to the hospital. It was a terrifying scene to find your little girl in a life threatening state, and one I hope to never see again. Although the day started out with a terrifying scene, we spent the remainder of the day praising our sovereign God for her recovery. We couldn’t escape the obvious providence of God in the entire ordeal.
According to the doctor, if her seizure had lasted for longer than ten minutes, it could have had devastating effects upon her body – perhaps death. As we surveyed the scene and the way it unfolded, it was nothing less than God’s meticulous providence at work. Karis never gets up through the night to visit the restroom. However, yesterday, in the early hours of the morning she was in the restroom when her seizure happened. If she had gone into a seizure in the early hours of the morning in her bed while remaining undetected until breakfast time at around 8:00am, she could have died. It was nothing less than the providence of God that placed her in that restroom (Prov. 16:9).
As I embrace a robust view of God and the meticulous providence of God, it become even more apparent after the dust started to settle on this heart wrenching emergency. As R.C. Sproul has said, “There is no maverick molecule if God is sovereign.” [1] We know and believe that our God governs the universe (Heb. 1:3). He has the moon, stars, the sun, and the earth all under His divine providential control (Jer. 31:35; Ps. 24:1). We read about how God controls the hearts of kings (Prov. 21:1). We know that God knows how many hairs are upon our head and cares for His children more than the birds that He feeds every morning (Matt. 10:30; 6:25-34). We know that God upholds the world and controls the laws of nature (Heb. 1:3; Ps. 107:25; 78:26). The wind and the waves obey Him (Mark 4:41). Once again, the truth of God’s providence became crystal clear. I was reminded that He is also providentially controlling the restroom visits of my daughter. If she had not been in the restroom, it’s highly probable that we wouldn’t have found her in time.
Abraham Kuyper once remarked, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!” [2] That includes presidential elections and restroom visits. That includes wars, rumors of wars, and restroom visits. God rules over all things at all times. According to Article 5.2 on Divine Providence, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith states, “nothing happens to anyone by chance, or outside His providence, yet by His providence He orders events to occur according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.” Nothing that happens in any of the multifaceted spheres of life is beyond the direct and divine providential ruling power of God. For that, we sleep peacefully and go about life in confidence that God is in charge of everything.
This has been a long and stressful week for our family, but one packed with lessons. At every turn, I see the providence of God. The next time you hear a sermon or read an article about the meticulous providence of God, remember that He controls everything – even restroom visits in the early hours of the morning. He is wise and good, and we can trust Him. His mercies are new everyday. Psalm 115:3 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” Yesterday, He was pleased to preserve the life of my daughter, and I praise Him.
- God’s Sovereignty – Ligonier Ministries
- Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Eerdmans, 1998), 488.
