A small gust of wind. The slight turn of a head. The July 13, 2024 assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump reminded us just how quickly history can turn for good or evil. The former President escaped with his life and the shocking moment has been immortalized by a photograph of Donald Trump, face bloodied and fist defiant in the air, with an American flag waving in the background. Does it get more iconically American than that? Yet, in the pit of our stomachs, we all know how easily history could have taken a different turn! Then what? Many fear to even think of the negative reverberations it could have produced in our already contentious society. History is a fragile thing.
Many commentators have chalked it up to luck or fate. We so easily hand over the keys to the lives of human beings and the history of civilizations to random chance or to the callous impersonal powers of predetermination. Such comments are meant to comfort or inspire, but they leave us with a worldview utterly devoid of meaning and purpose. Fear and despair are the ultimate end to any such views of life and a world ruled by chaos and random chance. Perhaps Donald Trump’s own assessment best captures what really happened on Saturday, “…it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
Indeed, it was.
God Controls Everything
A matter of millimeters may have been the difference between life and death, but it is God who stands behind the millimeters and the milliseconds of our lives and human history.
The Westminster Confession of Faith 3.1 states, “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” God ordains whatsoever comes to pass—the grand events on which human history turns and even the unacknowledged death of an insignificant sparrow (Matt. 10:29). This is a sharp contrast from impersonal fate, which callously explains that whatever is, must be. Rather, whatever God ordains must be. God is personal, and all God’s acts in history are purposeful.
We need not live in fear of a meaningless and random existence if God has ordered his creation and sovereignly rules over it. In this way, it’s true that everything happens for a reason. “God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things…by His most wise and holy providence…to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy” (WCF 5.1). Nothing is arbitrary. Even something as seemingly random as a toss of the dice is decided by the Lord (Prov. 16:33). Nothing is outside of God’s control. Nothing is meaningless.
We Can’t Interpret God’s Providence
As Christians, however, we must be cautious not to put too much imagination into our interpretation of God’s providence. We must not imagine that God providentially saved Donald Trump’s life because he is God’s choice for president in four months in order to usher in four years of peace, prosperity, and stability. We cannot presume to know what the next four months or four years will hold for our country or what God intends behind his providential acts. After all, many great leaders throughout history did not escape an assassin’s bullet, while many ruthless dictators have. God’s hand was no less providentially involved in those instances. We must not imagine that God is on our side against our enemies. Do you remember the simple reply of the commander of the Lord’s army to Joshua’s question, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” “No,” was his clear and concise response (Josh. 5:13–14). We cannot put God in a box. We are obligated to get on God’s side and not presume that he is on ours. He has his purposes in all that happens even when it is not our desired outcome.
The Comfort of Providence
What comfort, then, does the providence of God have for us who cannot interpret God’s purposes behind it? What good does it do to know that everything has meaning if we cannot know the meaning of it? “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever…” (Deut. 29:29). It is a comfort to see the providential hand of God at work in human history because, though we may not always know God’s purposes, we do know our God through what he has revealed to us in his word and in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has revealed himself as One worthy of our trust in his sovereign rule over all things. God always does what is good, right, and perfect.
God’s providential hand was at work even through the murderous evil of men crucifying the Son of God (Acts 2:23). Initially, the disciples of Christ did not understand the meaning and purpose behind the death of Jesus. Yet, through this darkest day in human history, the God who providentially orchestrated it was working for the eternal good of mankind. God raised Jesus from the grave so that sin, death, and evil would be defeated and salvation would be granted to all who call upon the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). Therefore, we need not fear a world of chaos or put our hope in dumb luck. The God behind all human history is working all things for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28). Nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:39). He is our hope!
The ultimate end of everything that happens is to lead us to praise God for who he is and what he has done. We may not always know the hidden reasons for why God does what he does in his sovereign rule, but we do know through the gospel of Jesus Christ that he is worthy of our praise. He is moving human history toward his ordained ends by his providential hand. As Christians, we know how that story ends! Jesus Christ will return to make all things new and to save those who are eagerly waiting for him (Heb. 9:28)! In the meantime, we can have peace because we know that everything that happens in our lives and in human history is God moving us toward that day.
