There’s a comfort that only comes from knowing we are children of God, found in Christ, and that all things will finally turn out for His glory and our good (Romans 8:28).
There’s comfort in knowing that God is unchanging, constant, and independently good. The only a se. The only One who depends on no one and nothing outside Himself. The only One who simply is.
Everyone else is contingent. Everyone else is fragile. Everyone else is held together by something beyond themselves.
But not God.
And that matters.
Life Is Not Stable
Because life is not stable… Not really. We pretend it is. We build routines, make plans, manage calendars, insure things, save money, check symptoms, maintain fitness, and try to keep everything moving in a sensible direction. These things are good, as far as they go.
But they don’t go very far.
Most of our lives sit outside our control. There is no remedy for that. We are not, and will never be, in control.
Does that scare you?
Fair enough.
But take comfort. We have a good boss, and He is in control.
What the Chronicler Saw
The Chronicler, arguably the first biblical commentator, understands this deeply. He retells the story from 1 Samuel through to 2 Kings with a deliberate focus on God’s unchanging purposes. He is not merely repeating history. He is interpreting it. He is showing us what mattered beneath the noise of kings, wars, failures, reforms, apostasies, victories, and defeats. And what mattered was this:
God remained faithful.
Faithful to His covenant. Faithful to David’s line. Faithful to His promises. Faithful even when His people were faithless. The throne was shaken. The kingdom was divided. The temple was destroyed. The people went into exile.
But God’s purposes did not fail.
The Chronicler writes with hindsight, but not cynicism. He looks back over the wreckage and the glory, the obedience and rebellion, and keeps pointing to the same truth: God has not changed. His promise has not evaporated. His purpose has not been defeated. The promised King is still coming.
And for us, He has come.
Christ, the Son of David, the true King, the better Priest, the faithful Israel, the One in whom every promise of God finds its “yes” (2 Corinthians 1:20). We are not waiting as they waited. We look back to the cross and resurrection, and forward to the life of the age to come.
But We Still Live in the Middle
And the middle can be hard.
We don’t choose the time or circumstances of our lives. If I had lived 100 years ago, I would have lost my leg to an infection, and my daughter may well have died this week from appendicitis. That is not dramatic. It is just true.
So much of what we call “normal life” is mercy we did not arrange and cannot guarantee. Wrong century, wrong country, wrong hospital, wrong diagnosis, wrong timing — and everything changes.
That should humble us. It should make us less smug, less certain that we are masters of our own lives, less impressed with our illusion of control.
But it should not make us hopeless.
Because our comfort is not that life is predictable. It isn’t. Our comfort is not that we can manage every threat. We can’t. Our comfort is not that we will understand what God is doing in the moment. Often, we won’t.
Our comfort is that God is unchanging, constant, and independently good. Our comfort is that we belong to Him. Our comfort is that, in Christ, all things will turn out for His glory and our good. Not because all things are good in themselves. They are not! Infection is not good. Appendicitis is not good. Death is not good. Sin is not good. Exile is not good. Suffering is not good.
But God is good.
He Knows What He Is Doing
And He is not merely reacting. He is not scrambling. He is not making the best of a bad situation. He is not surprised by the things that terrify us. He is not waiting to see how history turns out.
He knows what He is doing.
That doesn’t remove grief; it does not make pain easy; it does not mean we pretend frightening things are not frightening.
The Bible never asks us to be fake about suffering. Lament is not unbelief. Tears are not rebellion. Fear is not always faithlessness.
But underneath all of it, deeper than our fear, deeper than our confusion, deeper than the apparent chaos of events, is the steady purpose of God.
The Chronicler saw it in the line of David. We see it too — in Christ!
And so we wait for what has been promised.
“And this is the promise that he himself promised us: life in the age to come.” — 1 John 2:25 (REV)
So that is where our comfort finally lands. Not in circumstances. Not in control. Not in health, timing, competence, luck, planning, medicine, money, or strength. We are grateful for those things when God gives them, but they are not our rock.
God’s promise in Christ is.
God’s a good boss. He knows what’s up.