The Certainty of God in An Uncertain Year

If you live in the higher latitudes where seasonal changes occur, you have likely been blessed and encouraged by the beautiful days of autumn we have had in 2020.  This prolonged period without widespread killing frosts in our area have allowed Abby and I to enjoy the fruits of our landscaping efforts this year.  We are also enjoying hikes in some of our favorite Ohio natural areas.  In this article, we decided to share some photos showing the beauty of our landscape and to remind us all of God’s faithfulness which has affirmed our faith during this unusual year, 2020.

Outdoor Answers to 2020 Anxiety

For many of us, this outdoor blessing couldn’t have come at a better time.  This past weekend, Abby and I were blessed to hike in Johnson Woods State Nature Preserve, one of our wonderful natural areas in Wayne County.  Johnson Woods is one of Ohio’s largest stands of old growth forest where visitors can enjoy towering oaks, hickories, American beech, and sugar maple.  This 155-acre tract invites hikers to traverse the entire 1.4-mile boardwalk through both upland forest and swampland or take a shorter, less rigorous route.   Johnson Woods is actually changing through ecological succession from an oak-hickory forest to a beech-maple forest.  The latter tree species are among several species which are shade tolerant and thus able to establish their populations in the shade of the oaks and hickories which are less able to reproduce themselves in their own shade.

We also enjoyed our visit to Secrest Arboretum on the campus of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) one sunny afternoon.  This arboretum has both horticultural plantings and landscapes of native plant communities which are botanically diverse, beautiful, and inviting any season of the year.

Another inviting local forest tract, located a few miles west of the City of Wooster, is Wooster Memorial Park.  This 422-acre park differs from Johnson Woods, particularly because of its rolling topography which is dissected by steep ravines.  Wooster Memorial Park is an inviting treasure for botanists and birdwatchers in any season.

When Abby and I drove into the parking lots of the two natural areas, we were struck by the large number of cars.  At Wooster Memorial Park, we could barely get a parking place. 
“What is going on,” we asked? 
We had never seen such a large number of cars.   We soon realized that this large number of visitors was due, not only to the warm, sunny weather, but also by the increasing appeal of the outdoors as a place of safety and respite from virus-prone crowds.

Submitting Our Confusion to a Covenant-Keeping God

The year 2020 has given us many challenges.  We have faced a pandemic, the economic lockdown, limited access to routine health care, separation of families due to health and travel restrictions, alteration of classroom education, limited sports, online worship services, and a presidential election with an uncertain outcome. 

Meanwhile, most of us, and especially our children and grandchildren, depend on a sense of order, predictability, and security in their lives.  Yet 2020 has failed to deliver on these important needs, at least humanly speaking.  That is why we adults who live in higher latitudes of the northern and southern hemispheres can be encouraged as we witness the predictable change of seasons.  And, we are wise to direct the attention of our children and grandchildren to God’s creation where we can observe, as the hymnwriter of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”  expresses so well,

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Of course, the weather is changeable and our climate is also changing.  But for those of us who believe in the Divine Providence of God, the regular, predictable, annual change of seasons is a tribute to God’s faithfulness. 

God is indeed faithful, and our faith in Him is not only self-reassuring in these difficult days, but can bring a wellspring of reassurance as we reach out to lonely people who are isolated from family and friends during this pandemic.

We conclude with a wonderful reminder from the Old Testament in which God assures His people of just how committed He is to His covenant with those who have put their trust in His plan of Salvation.  At the time Jeremiah wrote these words, God’s plan had yet to unfold.   Centuries later, it came to fruition through “the Son of David,” Jesus Christ, who died and rose again.  Those who put their trust in Jesus for salvation from our fallen nature will always be able to point to Him as Satan would accuse us, or when we stand before God as our Judge (emphasis mine):

Thus says the LORD,
‘If you can break My covenant for the day
 and My covenant for the night,
so that day and night will not be at their appointed time,
then My covenant may also be broken
with David My servant so that he
will not have a son to reign on his throne…
                                                     – Jeremiah 33: 20-21

How Do You Respond to the Seasons?
What is your favorite season?  
What activities have you enjoyed in that season?
What Scripture have your found assuring during this uncertain year? 
Or, if you live in low or tropical latitudes, how do you enjoy a more constant seasonal change?  If this article touches a familiar chord in your experience and in your faith, we’d love to receive your “Comments” whether written below, by e-mail (silviusj@gmail.com), or through face-to-face conversations.  Thank you for reading.

Acknowledgement
Thanks are in order to our friends, Chris and Lynsa Knickerbocker.  During my phone conversation with Chris earlier this year, and as I was expressing some concern over the politics of the pandemic, Chris remarked how much comfort and solace he and his family receive from observing the evidence of God’s faithfulness in the changing seasons.  Chris appreciates the annual regularity revealed in each plant species as it emerges and progresses through its growing season.  I thank you, Chris, for interpreting God’s revelation in this encouraging way.

A Pope and a President in a Divine Plan

While Americans await the outcome of this week’s presidential election, many of us are realizing that our hopes and expectations rest in an uncertain future.  Some believe that events are governed by random chance occurrences, like successive tosses of a coin.  In this view of life, there is little or no “purpose” among the happenings governing our lives.  However, many historians, philosophers, scientists, and people of faith, make a strong case for the role of Divine Providence working through human free will and “laws of nature” to bring about His purposeful ends. 

Benjamin Franklin’s challenge to a deadlocked Constitutional Convention (1787) reflects the belief of many of our Founding Fathers in the role of Divine Providence in the rise of nations:

… God governs in the affairs of men.  And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.”

And the prophet Daniel wrote,
He removes kings and sets up kings… - Daniel 2:21

In his book, The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, Michael Medved presents clear evidence of the hand of God in the rise of “the American experiment.”  [See book review HERE.]

As the prophet stated, if God can “set up kingdoms,” He can also “remove kingdoms.” New York Times bestselling author, Paul Kengor, and award-winning writer/filmmaker, Robert Orlando make a very strong case for Divine Providence in ending the Cold War and the tyrannical rule of Soviet Russia, in 1991.  Together, Kengor and Orlando have written The Divine Plan (ISI Books, 2019) which features the lives of two unlikely characters and several supporting actors whom they believe were used to bring about the providential release of millions of people from the tyranny of Communism.

The climax of The Divine Plan is the fall of the Iron Curtain.  However, most of the book is a riveting account of how the Hand of Providence individually equipped and brought together the two principal characters in this unfolding drama. 

The first unlikely character was a Hollywood actor, governor of California, and eventually president of the United States, named Ronald Reagan.  The second character was Karol Wojtyla, an ordained Catholic priest (1946), then bishop (1958), archbishop (1964), cardinal (1967), and, in 1978, elected Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in 400 years.

Reagan:  “Rendezvous with Destiny”
The first chapter takes us into Ronald Reagan’s living room, in June, 1979, three years after he was narrowly defeated by President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination to face challenger Jimmy Carter.  Reagan and his large conservative base had become even more convinced that the 1980 presidential election was Reagan’s to win.  Within the next year and a half, Reagan would win the presidency and soon become known as “the Great Communicator.”

But now, while Reagan and Richard Allen his future national security advisor sit together, they turn on the TV to watch the news.  There, filling the TV screen was a crowd of 2 million Poles who had gathered in Victory Square in Warsaw, Poland, behind the Iron Curtain!  This mass of oppressed humanity had gathered to celebrate their fellow countryman, Karol Wojtyla, now their new pope, John Paul II.  Ronald Reagan is struck by this groundswell of evidence that this Polish pope is so highly regarded and apparently a powerful communicator.

As Cardinal Timothy Dolan recounts this event, Pope John Paul II, without mentioning, without using any political partisan vocabulary, without mentioning Russia, without mentioning marks, without mentioning Communism, when he could bring two million people to chant for 11 minutes non-stop, “We want God,” that's an actor who is such a person of integrity that you are able to bring out what is best in your audience.  And boy, they [Reagan and John Paul II] did it with great gusto.

According to the authors of The Divine Plan, Richard Allen recalled that Reagan quietly watched “the massive crowd celebrate the Pope. He is astonished to see such a massive outpouring of emotion behind the Iron Curtain.  Alan glances over at Reagan and notices something unusual and unexpected-- a tear in his eye.”

“’Dick, that's it,’ Reagan suddenly announces.  ‘That's it.  The pope is the key!  We've got to find a way to reach out to this Pope and the Vatican to make them in an ally.’”

Kengor and Orlando’s The Divine Plan uncovers the fascinating development of how Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II each came to understand how Divine Providence interacts with human free will.  That evening’s TV newscast in Reagan’s living room was an important step, but only one of many in a long succession of events far down the line from the origin of the Divine Plan in Reagan’s vision. 

Reagan’s Faith: Rooted in Divine Purpose
The authors reveal that Reagan’s faith in God was nurtured by his mother Nelle.  Both mother and son internalized the words of the Apostle Paul:  And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8: 28).  Nelle Reagan, a committed Christian, “taught her boy over and over that everything that happens in life, good or bad, does so according to a divine plan by a loving God.  According to James Rosebush, deputy assistant to Reagan, Reagan might well have gone to seminary instead of majoring in history at Eureka College.  Many in his congregation expected him to become a pastor.  Rosebush notes that if Reagan had become a pastor, he might have ministered to thousands, but as president, “he became an evangelist for freedom” and was used by Divine Providence to bring freedom to millions.

When Reagan became the 40^th president of the U.S., most leaders in the free world were satisfied that the Soviet Union would remain a powerful and perpetual nuclear power and political threat—an unfortunate reality.  However, Reagan saw Soviet tyranny from a different worldview.  In a speech at Notre Dame University, in 1981, Reagan articulated the basis for his notion of the Divine Plan:

For the West, for America, the time has come to dare to show to the world that our civilized ideas, our traditions, our values are not-- like the ideology and war machine of totalitarian societies--just a facade for strength.  It is time for the world to know our intellectual and spiritual values are rooted in the source of all strength, a belief in a Supreme Being, and a law higher than our own.

That Supreme Power is believed by many of us to have orchestrated the bonding of Reagan and John Paul II in a miraculous way when, within a few weeks of his inauguration, President Reagan narrowly escaped assassination by John Hinkley, in March, 1981.  The Divine Plan details how Reagan recovered from near death within a few weeks, and then reached out to John Paul II when he too was nearly killed by an assassin, in May, 1981.  The two men began a rich correspondence, and when they met for the first time, “they confided to each other a shared conviction: that God had spared their lives for a reason.  That reason?  To defeat Communism.”

Karol Wojtyla and Supporting Characters
Readers of The Divine Plan will discover how Karol Wojtyla, long before he became Pope John Paul II, had many unusual experiences that paralleled Reagan’s life.  Both men were introduced as young men to a personal relationship with the God of Heaven and to the evil of tyrannical powers on Earth.  Reagan’s life was threatened by Communist infiltrators of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild while he led the organization in the 1940’s.  Wojtyla lived through both Nazi and Communist occupation of Poland, and his life was miraculously spared when his nearly lifeless body was rescued from a roadside during World War II.  But there were also “co-stars” who played important roles in the Divine Plan.

There was Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Great Britain, who became a personal friend and political ally of Ronald Reagan.  And, after a succession of cold and ruthless Soviet premier’s, a man named Mikhail Gorbachev came into power.  As unlikely as Karol Wojtyla was to become pope from behind the Iron Curtain was Gorbachev to become a Soviet premier.  Yet, Kengor and Orlando relate how Gorbachev’s mother, two grandmothers, and a grandfather were devout Orthodox Christians and had read the Bible to young Mikhail.   As a relatively young man, Gorbachev was the Soviet Politburo’s choice of their premier who could “go toe-to-toe with Reagan.  The two leaders met in nuclear summits four times and learned to trust each other in spite of Reagan’s firm resolve to bring an end to Communist domination.

Reagan:  People "Desire to Know God"
I conclude my review of The Divine Plan with the authors’ quote of a response President Reagan gave to James Rosebush when asked, “Mr. President, what do you think will really bring down Soviet-style Communism and Eastern Bloc totalitarianism?” to which Reagan replied, “…that’s only going to happen because of the people’s desire to know God.”  Rosebush understood, and added,

…Reagan saw this, he knew this.  Here he’s telling me that the only way that we’re going to bring down these systems that keep people from knowing God is to replace the worship of the state with the worship of God.

On this Presidential Election Day in America, there appears to be a choice, naturally between two imperfect presidential tickets, Trump-Pence versus Biden-Harris.  Voters are deciding the future path of America.  I believe this election will decide whether or not America will have another chance to continue forming “a more perfect union” under liberties granted by Divine Providence.  Or, will a relatively few in power will fashion a man-centered, authoritarian government which dispenses rights as deemed necessary to supposedly assure economic and social equality and justice for all—except those few in power.  Whatever the outcome of this week’s election, Christ-followers can trust in the Divine Plan, and in the God who removes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:21).

How Will You Respond?
I hope you will find inspiration and hope as I have if you choose to read The Divine Plan.  How appropriate in our current state of turmoil and dividedness as a nation to look back in world history to see clear evidence of God’s sovereign intervention working in mysterious direction of human free will.  If you enjoyed Michael Medved’s The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic (See review HERE.), you will enjoy The Divine Plan.  Co-author Robert Orlando has also produced The Divine Plan Documentary which is available on Amazon Prime and other platforms.  As always, I appreciate your comments whether written below, or by e-mail (silviusj@gmail.com), or through face-to-face conversations.  Thank you for reading.