God’s Providence II

The book, Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny, displays providence. Navalny’s writings were gathered by his lawyers and published posthumously. His Anti-Corruption Foundation was, and still is, exposing the corruption of Putin’s regime in Russia. It features bold activism in a very tough neighborhood—a primer for confronting broken leadership in a major nation.

Navalny’s basic biography? By 2020 he was known internationally as Putin’s sharpest Russian critic. His stature grew after he was hit with a dose of Novichok, a unique FSB poison. Navalny was immediately sent to Germany where exceptional medical care saved his life. Yet he returned to Russia and was immediately arrested. He continued his protests in prison through his writings. Then in February 2024, at the age of 47, he was poisoned again and died.

A couple of impressions. First, Navalny was courageous in returning to Russia after his first poisoning. He reminded me of Daniel, in the Bible, who chose to pray openly after a law against his faith was written to entrap him. Daniel was arrested and condemned to a night in a lion’s den. There God kept him safe. But Navalny wasn’t so blessed.

My second and related notice was of Navalny’s personal Christian faith. This is where I see a picture of providence. His view of God was more explicit than is common with most Russian Orthodox believers. Not that he was an exemplar of all my own evangelical views, but he knew about providence. God’s hand was active, and he trusted God in his choices and the results.

This raises an obvious question. Why didn’t God protect Navalny’s life? In my last entry I noted my own confidence in God’s providence. God’s hand-for-good is always at work in all his people. My story, compared to a Daniel or a Navalny, is petty. But providence isn’t defined by the size or quality of a person’s faith. A lively connection with God is key. Call it love. So we read in Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…” [my emphasis]. It’s what God shares in and through hearts that respond to his heart. His active, wise care then shapes each story.

So what do we say about believers who love God, yet whose stories end badly? Why, for instance, wasn’t Navalny saved like Daniel was? Why, too, do we all have those close to us who die prematurely despite our earnest prayers? And why do so many evil people in the world prosper, while vast numbers of poor and oppressed people suffer and die? Life, we learn, is uneven and can often be unfair.

We have a couple of ways to go here. God might just be picky about who he rescues. As in a lottery where only a few win and the rest are losers. Okay, but why, if God is good and mighty, do so few win? This makes him seem capricious—unfair and uncaring. A tragic divinity.

A better option is that God’s providence runs deeper and wider than we realize. As in Isaiah 55:8-9. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God’s wisdom has dimensions we don’t get to see short of heaven. So we need to treat the question of suffering and loss within the humility of faith.

Let’s chase this. Jesus, God’s beloved Son, once traveled to Jerusalem with eyes wide open. He was warned to avoid Jerusalem because authorities there were ready to kill him. He went ahead anyway and was crucified. He was like Navalny in terms of courage. But, as his disciples saw it, Jesus was foolish. Yet here’s another question to consider—who sets up the values that define a good or a bad outcome? Life is made up of a vast set of threads as it becomes a tapestry. And providence is always part of a bigger vision. And here’s where another foundation of providence needs to be noted. God has a purpose in mind for all of us—a role to play—in his huge, complex, and eternal purposes. We see this, related to believers, in Ephesians 2:10. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Jesus, for instance, went to Jerusalem in line with God’s plan for him. He knew he would be betrayed and crucified. He expected to be “lifted up” on a cross with his sacrifice meant to defeat death. We see some of this in John 3:14-16, and in 12:31-33. All linked to the prophecies of the sacrificial servant in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. After his resurrection, then, he asked, “‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” [Lk 24:26-27]. Jesus became a man to overcome evil by devouring death. He did this on the cross, as an aim vastly greater than his fearful disciples understood!

Let’s add another, deeper explanation. Jesus displayed God’s use of double-agency. He was part of something both good and bad at the same time. The same as in the story of Joseph in Genesis. His brothers trafficked him as a slave when he was young. They expected him to retaliate after they discovered he had become the prime minister of Egypt. So, after their father Jacob died, they were sure their time had come. Joseph, however, had a bigger view: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” [Gen 50:19-20].

So two opposed intentions, human and divine, co-existed for one set of events. While his brothers wanted to be rid of Joseph, God had a good plan in view. In an extended time frame, God solved a later tragedy by using the earlier evil choices by the brothers to produce good.

This touches a second concern. How does providence relate to sovereignty? Are they different terms? So that, perhaps, God’s sovereignty drove Joseph’s brothers to do what they did. Then God’s providence came to his rescue? But note that the two terms aren’t used in the Bible. We do have claims that God is “almighty.” He always rules the creation as creator and sustainer. So how are God’s almighty intentions active in life today? Assuming God actually cares for his creation? Power language—portraying God mainly as a sovereign figure—sets him out as a ruler without any love. Only providence speaks of God’s love. Of his caring heart.

Providence, then, is present in the claim that the Genesis creation was “very good.” Yet this aim was disfigured when Adam declared independence from God. Adam, it emerged, wasn’t wholly satisfied with God’s care, even though he was wholly dependent on him! So I suggest that these two words, providence and sovereignty, differ mainly in their underlying perception of God’s heart!

With this in mind let’s look at the problem of Adam’s fall in Genesis chapter three. It was certainly a providential moment in which God’s double-agency—of using evil to accomplish good—was at work.

Given God’s faithfulness and the lessons we’ve just reviewed, here’s my speculation on “why sin?” It’s not new, but I’ll reshape it in terms of God’s providential love. And not as a function of “God’s sovereignty and human free will”—what I grew up hearing in the churches I attended. Instead let’s apply God’s providence and human love. I’ll take this up in the next blog.