(un) Holy Cow!
- Joel Balin
- Jul 14
- 5 min read
My jaw dropped.
A struggling mother said to me,
"My son will be healed from his life-altering disease as soon as God is finished using it."
I knew she was trying to make sense of unimaginable suffering. But I couldn't help thinking:
Holy Cow! That's not how our Heavenly Father treats His children.
She’s not alone.
I've heard it in Bible studies, small groups, casual conversations, and even heartfelt prayers.
"God is in control."
"God caused this for a reason."
"Lord, if it’s Your will..."
Those statements usually come from sincere hearts. But they also reveal one of the most pervasive misunderstandings in the Church.
Some sacred cows are harmless traditions. Others distort the very character of God. Those are the ones worth tipping over.
One of the most destructive is this:
Since God is sovereign, everything that happens must therefore be His will because He personally causes or controls every event.
I’m not questioning God's sovereignty.
I’m questioning whether we've defined it the way Scripture does.
The King Is Still on His Throne
Scripture never apologizes for God's sovereignty.
He is the Creator.
He is the King.
He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present.
The question has never been whether God is sovereign.
The question is how His sovereignty is expressed.
The answer begins on the very first pages of Scripture.
"Let Us make man in Our image... and let them have dominion... over all the earth."(Genesis 1:26-28)
God didn't create mankind merely to inhabit the earth.
He entrusted mankind with authority to govern it.
The psalmist says it even more plainly:
"The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth He has given to mankind."(Psalm 115:16)
In His sovereignty, God chose to give mankind authority to govern the earth.
That explains why Jesus taught us to pray:
"Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Think about it.
If God’s sovereignty meant that everything that happens on earth was God's will, Jesus would never have taught us to pray for God's will to be done on earth.
God's will is carried out perfectly in heaven.
On earth, the King has chosen to accomplish His will through people who willingly partner with Him.
That is how His Kingdom works.
The Sacred Cow Begins to Wobble
This changes everything.
It means we should stop blaming God for things He never claimed responsibility for.
Scripture consistently shows that things happening in the world arise from:
Human rebellion—our flesh
The kingdom of darkness—the enemy
A fallen creation
And they often work together.
Yet God remains sovereign over them all—not by authoring evil, but by redeeming it.
The greatest misunderstanding of God's sovereignty is not that God is less sovereign than Scripture teaches.
It's that we've imagined His sovereignty to mean He personally controls what He has repeatedly entrusted to mankind.
The issue isn't whether God is sovereign. The issue is understanding how the sovereign King has chosen to govern His Kingdom on earth—through us.
Once we understand that, we stop blaming God for everything that happens and start partnering with Him to accomplish His will on earth.
The Hot Stove
When my son was little, I warned him, "Don't touch the hot stove."
If he ignored me, he would learn a painful lesson.
But imagine hearing him years later tell someone,
"My father burned my hand to teach me not to touch hot stoves."
No!
I warned him. I instructed him. I loved him.
His painful experience reinforced my instruction.
But I never caused the injury in order to teach the lesson.
Our Heavenly Father is no different.
God often teaches us through hardship. That does not mean He authors the hardship.
A Master Redeemer
Romans 8:28 is one of the most quoted verses in Scripture.
Unfortunately, it's often paraphrased as though it says,
"God causes everything that happens."
It doesn't. It says,
"In all things God works for the good of those who love Him." Romans 8:28
That's a tremendous difference.
God doesn't have to cause every circumstance in order to work through every circumstance.
Joseph's brothers caused his suffering. Potiphar's wife caused his imprisonment. The cupbearer prolonged his confinement.
They meant it for evil. God redeemed it for good.
God is not the author of evil. He is its Redeemer.
Think About It...
If every sickness and oppression were directly caused by God...
Why would Jesus spend His ministry healing the sick, preaching the Gospel, and delivering the oppressed?
Why would we pray for healing or go to the doctor?
Why would we resist the devil?
Why would we preach the Gospel?
Why would we feed the hungry?
If every tragedy were God's specific will, why did Jesus spend His ministry undoing tragedy?
The New Testament says Jesus came:
"...to destroy the works of the devil."
How can God be the author of what Jesus came to destroy?
Does God cause...
rape?
murder?
child abuse?
genocide?
human trafficking?
No!
When we blame God for what the devil destroys, what sinful people choose, or what a fallen world produces, we don't honor God's sovereignty—we confuse the Father's heart with the kingdom of darkness.
We don't magnify God's sovereignty—we misrepresent His character.
If we want to know what the Father is really like, we don't have to speculate.
We only have to look at the One who said:
"Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." (John 14:9)
Look at Jesus
Jesus healed the sick, forgave sinners, restored the broken, set captives free, and proclaimed the Kingdom.
He revealed the Father.
And yes...
He tipped over more than a few sacred cows.
He confronted every religious tradition that distorted His Father's character or misrepresented how God's Kingdom works.
Jesus never afflicted people with sickness to teach them.
He never oppressed people to make them holy.
He never turned away anyone who came to Him in faith.
Instead, He destroyed the works of the devil and revealed the heart of His Father.
If that is what Jesus is like, then that is what the Father is like.
But Jesus didn't come merely to reveal the Father. He came to restore mankind's original calling to represent the Father.
"As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." (John 20:21)
Just as the Father entrusted the earth to mankind in the beginning, Jesus entrusted the work of His Kingdom to His Church.
He gave us His authority.
He filled us with His Spirit.
He sends us to proclaim His Kingdom, heal the sick, and make disciples.
Jesus revealed the Father. Now He sends us to reveal the Father by carrying out the Father's will here on earth.
The Father Jesus Came to Reveal
God is sovereign.
He is still on His throne.
But His sovereignty does not mean He meticulously determines every human decision or personally authors every event.
His sovereignty is seen not in causing every event, but in accomplishing His purposes in every event.
The casualty of a distorted understanding of God's sovereignty isn't just our theology.
It's our picture of the Father.
If we believe God authors everything that Jesus came to defeat, we will eventually struggle to trust the One Jesus came to reveal.
But when we see the Father as Jesus revealed Him—
A sovereign King who governs through the authority He entrusted to us
One who redeems rather than authors evil
Our Lord who heals rather than harms
We don't love Him less because He appears less sovereign.
We love Him more because we finally see Him as He truly is.
We trust Him more.
We represent Him more faithfully.
And Holy Cow, we partner with Him more boldly to see His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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