Teaching God's sovereignty in History

These are some random thoughts and ways that I talk with my girls about God’s sovereignty over all of history. 

We once had a pastor who used to say on a very regular basis that History is HIS story.  That includes all of history from the beginning of time to the history yet to be written.  While I’m not sure of the ages of your children, something as simple as saying when we study history, we are studying His story or God’s story can be all the more detail that you need to remind them Who is in control.  I  have said this same thing or a derivative of that to my children since we started home-schooling 16 years ago.

Everything that has happened or will happen is used by God to bring glory to Himself. This concept was especially uncomfortable for my own children when we’ve talked about any of the number of religious or ethnic genocidal acts perpetrated by various countries and peoples throughout time. However, as horrible as those times were and are still to contemplate, God used those times to raise up people who impacted others in a positive and godly way – people like Moses, the Israelites in any of their times of captivity, up through the Ten Booms, Bonhoeffer, and Schindler and beyond. 

Something to remember is that historical significance is hard to discern the closer you are on the timeline to the event you’re studying.  Historians still can’t agree on all of the historical ramifications of WWII or Vietnam let alone the Gulf War or 9/11. So it is with Christians as we view the events as they unfold.  We can’t always clearly see with our eyes the path that God is taking, but we see by faith that He is bringing about or allowing different events to happen to try to bring all people to Him.  As Christians, we know that in the end, it really does all work out well for those who place their trust in the Creator of all.

Having said that, even younger children (6 – 10 depending upon the child) can equate current situations with those they’ve read in the Bible.  While I would shy away from saying that something is *exactly* like a certain event from the Bible in most cases, there are similarities. I think this may help children to understand that the events in the Bible are *real* and give emotion to the emotionless words on a page from the Bible as well as a deeper trust that God will use all events for His good.

In the end, I don’t think you need to rely on a guide to tell you that God’s hand is moving through history. However, if you are more comforable with a guide, then use one.  Just do so with the caveat that just as secular historians don’t get the political implications correct all of the time, neither do Christian historians since our sight is hindered.  If we as Christians did get it all right, then we really wouldn’t need God in the first place.