Whose World Is This, Anyway?

As a young boy, I would join other Sunday School children in singing, “This Is My Father’s World,” and though I’d been taught God was to us a heavenly Father, for all the world as we sang those lyrics I’d also think of my dad in the exaggerated dimensions that come naturally to five-year-olds. This was my Father’s world, and in a sense, it was my father’s world as well; at least he was to me the strongest part of it. And now, given the events in the U.S. over the past several days—deception and dissension, malfeasance and mistrust, retribution and revenge—I return to my childhood wonder and consider again, Whose world is this, anyway?

In dire times like these, we cry out from deep within to the God we know is greater than us. Humankind spins out of control—our own doing—and we beg our Maker to come and fix our world for us, much as we might call a contractor to hasten to our home to keep a problem from becoming a disaster or a disaster from resulting in destruction. Only God is wise, powerful and good enough to remedy what our worldly self-will has wrought, and somehow we all know this. How many times have we beseeched Him, and how many times has He rescued us when only He could do so?

In all of this, we easily lose sight of one immovable premise: This is our Father’s world. Wrote David, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.”¹ God created everything through His pre-incarnate Son: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”² And God reigns over that which He owns: “Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”³ In short, God owns the place, and He cares for it infinitely more than we do.

Then it is God who calls us to avail ourselves to Him, so that He would work His will in His world through us. We cry out to Him, yes, for He is wisdom amid our folly and His strength overpowers our own, but may we also hear Him and give ourselves entirely to Him today, for as the world pleads for help, God responds through us, His people.

“As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”⁴—Jesus the Son, to God the Father

Father, this is Your world, not ours; You love it more than we do. Forgive us our sins, overcome our fear, and establish us in Your path. Strengthen us to do as You call us to do here among the people You love. In Christ we pray. Amen.

¹ Psalm 24:1-2
² John 1:3
³ 1 Chronicles 29:11
⁴ John 17:18