All history is God's history

Why is all history God’s history?

As early as Augustine, it has been held by the tradition of faith that “All truth is God’s truth.”  Yesterday I stated that I believe that “All history is God’s history.”  Is this so?  I have read and heard so many through the years present Biblical accounts as though they occurred in some sort of vacuum!  Like the Bible events and stories were separate from the rest of world history.  This is not so!  In fact, God is obviously working in all events around the world toward His conclusions.  God acts and reveals Himself in all of world history, not just in short Biblical vignettes.  We should draw some obvious conclusions from this truth:

1)      God has worked in the past, even if unrecognized or unnoticed. (i.e. Esther)

2)      God works in the present in such subtle ways that His hand seems circumstantial.

3)      God will work in the days to come even if men refuse to acknowledge His will is being accomplished.

History becomes the lasting witness of divine purpose and meaning.   History must not be perceived or presented as merely a tangle of unrelated events that seem to fortunately stumble toward a divine outcome.  I am convinced that the believer on a journey of faith must see the signposts of God spread across the roadmap of time and geography.  This observant spirit must not be limited to the narrow band of Biblical essay and the concurrent times that the world and Bible characters intersect.  God is at work in all places at all times!  For example, how devastating would it be to discover that the Romans did not use crucifixion as a method of capital punishment?  Or that the battles of Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Greeks or Romans did not match the overlay of the Biblical text? 

I do not try to invent a God explanation for every event, though I am sure there is one.  I am content to wait for God to reveal Himself through the everyday and common.  By faith, I accept the overarching themes of history – those revealed in Scripture, those unveiled in my daily life and those inscrutable events yet to be understood in the wisdom of God. We may guess at a purpose or scratch out crude outlines of our projections, but beware that we do not lock God into a plan that is not His plan.

This is the warning – seeing the patterns of this supernatural weave may not be fully discernable by mortal and finite minds.  However, take heart!  We will have all eternity to hear this story of history explained to each believer by the author of time and purpose.  I live daily with the trust that, while I do not see all, by God’s Grace I see enough to trust Him for the unseen!  I still believe that all truth is God’s truth and all history is God’s history!