Our Times Are in God’s Hands

Our Times Are in God’s Hands

When someone you know, or heard of, who is also a follower of Jesus, dies suddenly in an accident, or maybe they were murdered, or it was the end of an extended illness, have you ever felt their death was tragic, wasteful, or premature? 

Did you know the boundaries of our lives are predetermined before we were born? Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in your hands.” Job 14:5 declares, “You have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” Psalm 139:16 says, “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Truly, in life and in death, our lives are in God’s hands! Praise the Lord! Isn’t describing someone’s death as tragic, wasteful, or premature actually denying God glory? Don’t these words demean God’s sovereign purposes and plans for our lives? Clearly, we are not capable of such knowledge.  James 4:14 says, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”    

From the world’s perspective, we may look at the loss of life as tragic, wasteful, or premature.  But from God’s perspective, when we live engaged in the reality that in life and in death our lives are in God’s hands, we find comfort, hope, healing, and strength to walk with Jesus, anticipating the moment when we, too, will be called home. Beloved, when someone dies embracing Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin, they immediately go into the presence of God, where, according to Psalm 16:11, “there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Does that sound tragic, or wasteful, or premature? I doubt they would say that!  Indeed, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15). 

This is Laine Wilder for Carry the Light Ministries, bringing you Insights From an Elder.

by Laine Wilder

author of “Insights From an Elder” for

Carry the Light Ministries