Are you, or someone in your household, struggling with authority? Perhaps your husband’s, or someone’s boss’s? Here’s a situation that arose with a friend of mine. Her boss wanted her to do something that she thought would be next door to impossible. Here’s what I wrote her:
This unreasonable request sounds like what military guys go through when the big generals, who see the big picture, say, “Just go blow up ...” and the response is, “Yeah right. We gotta move all our artillery, get past enemy lines, have no food,” etc.
Yes, you and your household can pray for a change of heart by the superior party. If the orders for you don’t change, however—and if following the orders would not be illegal, immoral, harmful, etc., I’ve learned that sometimes there can be supernatural reasons behind unwieldy authority plans/orders. Your obedience may turn out to have moved you out of a place where a bomb was ready to go off, a major 25-car pile-up was about ready to happen, an earthquake, etc. Sometimes your willing obedience may bring you to something that is supernaturally arranged: a certain person just ripe for evangelism, a significant encounter, etc. God’s providences are all a mystery. Appeal your boss’s authority vigorously, and if it doesn’t change, believe God in your weariness. Francois Fenelon, 300 years ago, declared that all minutiae of every day is covered by God’s divine providence, often for reasons we won’t know until glory.
Surely you will be borne along by angels (Isaiah 40:3).
