Sovereign God

One of the most difficult things to fully understand about the God that we serve is His sovereignty.  How can a God Who is sovereign grant to His children a free will?  How can a sovereign God Who is good, allow evil to happen?  If He is in control, why do tragedies occur and why does His work get thwarted?  It isn't an easy concept to understand. 
I think that sometimes we want God to put Himself into a box that we can understand and even control.  We want this infinitely complex Creator of the unfathomably vast universe, Who has the power to control and the wisdom to maintain all that He has spoken into existence, to make Himself fit into our incredibly finite rational mind.  Hmmmm, that doesn't make a lot of sense does it?
I used to teach Geometry at a Christian High School in Oklahoma City.  Geometry is a fairly complex subject, demanding the student to use his reasoning to take him from the starting point, the given, to a proven destination while justifying every move along the way.  To do this, he applies a long list of postulates and theorems to gradually work his way through the process of proving the given statement.  Geometry demands that the student employ a new kind of thinking that has not been required of him before this point in his education, and for some, it is a difficult transition. 
As I muddled through the dark cloud of confusion that it cast upon many of my students, I developed a statement to help them see their way, "Go from what you know to what you don't know."  There were always elements of the problem that were given to them and these elements implied other facts not in evidence.  They had to hold onto the things that they knew and then systematically progress one by one to the things that they didn't know.  As each new element was proven, it allowed them to show the validity of the next.
The same is true when we try to understand God with our finite, fallen minds.  If we try to master the subject all at once, we are certain to fail.  Many give up seeking after God because they come upon some aspect of His character that they can't rationalize.  The only way to begin to understand our Sovereign Maker is to start with what we know and move to what we don't know.
I know that God is and that He has revealed Himself in His Word.
I know that God is good and that He loves me.
I know that He sees in eternal perspective and understands things that I have no way of comprehending.
I know that He loved me enough to pay a precious price to redeem me.
And I know that He is powerful enough that the puny efforts of wicked men or the stumbling steps of His unfaithful children cannot thwart what He is doing in this world.
I know that He desires to have an intimate relationship with me and that in order to accomplish that, He has taken up residence in my heart.
I know that Satan is a defeated foe and that I have already won the victory through the authority of the name of Christ and the power of His blood.
I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know Who holds tomorrow.
And along with Paul, I know that He will work all things together for my ultimate good.
Whenever I face trials and tribulations, whenever the circumstances of life are hard to understand, whenever people that I have depended on let me down, I simply go back to the things that I know about God and ask Him to take me to a place of understanding about the things that I don't yet know. 
Like Geometry, it demands a new way of thinking.  It also demands a humility that acknowledges two important facts of life: 1. There is a God, and 2. I'm not Him.