Making Sense of God’s Sovereignty

Courtney Doctor

He is reigning and ruling over every particle, every moment that’s hard, when the suffering comes. Here’s the

Melissa Kruger

good news. God’s sovereignty is one attribute we haven’t talked about the other one. It is paired with his goodness.

Courtney Doctor

Welcome to the deep dish, a podcast where we love talking about deep truths, having deep conversations about deep truths. I am Courtney doctor, and I am here with my friend and co host, Melissa Kruger, and today we really are diving in about as deep as you can dive. We are going to be talking about the sovereignty of God. And the sovereignty of God is one of his attributes. So we’re going to talk about this attribute. We want to talk about why it matters. But can you first just start us off by telling us, explaining to me once again what is and after you don’t know God, help me.

Melissa Kruger

Help me. Help you. Well, I think this is so good, yeah, so often, even in our discussions, we’re talking about ourselves, right? And what’s beautiful about the attributes of God is it points us to who is God. And essentially, the Bible is explaining who is God, how does he act in the world? What is his role in this, which is pretty much everything. And so the attributes are often divided into two types, incommunicable, big, fancy word, and communicable. All that means is in communicable ways God is different from us, communicable the ways we can be like Him. And so

Courtney Doctor

any give me some examples of each of those, yes. So

Melissa Kruger

like, God’s sovereignty, which we’re going to talk about today, his reign, his power, all of those things, we can’t be like that. We try to be like that, right? We want to be, yeah, yeah. We want to be. But those type things, all powerful God is all knowing. You know, even though we think our cell phones can tell us everything, we’re actually not all knowing. But those are things that ways God is different than us, and we can never be like him. Ways God has created us to image him because we’re rightly made in the image of God or His communicable traits, like we can be loving, like God is loving. We can be kind, we can be patient, we can be gentle, self control. Those are all his character that he has somehow imprinted. If the fall hadn’t happened, right? That’s how we would be,

Courtney Doctor

right? We would bear his image accurately, accurately. Now, through

Melissa Kruger

the work of the Spirit, praise God, he can develop those things in us so we accurately represent him. So

Courtney Doctor

he’s never going to make us sovereign, is what you’re saying, but He will make us know you want I know, right? Well, we also, one of our dear friends and guests on the podcast has written two great books about both of the communicable and incommunicable. So Jen Wilkin has written on the incommunicable, none like him. And on the communicable in his image, like you were saying, Yes,

Melissa Kruger

I want to call it like him. I know

Courtney Doctor

I never like him. Yes, exactly like

Melissa Kruger

exactly be like him, and that those are great books if you want to agree, if you want to learn more. But so let’s get to sovereignty. Okay, okay, so some people might call this the providence of God, the sovereignty of God, like these can be used in all these different ways. What are we talking about when we say God is sovereign? Yeah,

Courtney Doctor

so think of it like a king. So we even call kings the sovereign right, the one who is sitting on a throne, the one who has complete authority, the one who is to be obeyed, the one who can enact laws. That’s what a king does. And so the sovereignty of God really highlights his kingliness and his authority and his ability to reign and rule over all things, and so where in Scripture? Because it is so clear from the first page of Scripture, where are we seeing the sovereignty of God? How does he so? And what I mean by that, the reason I’m asking that question in that way is because the Bible does two things you were saying. It’s a story all about him, and it is, and it’s a story where he reveals himself progressively. And one of the ways he does that he both tells us who he is, like Exodus 34 where he says, you know the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness. So this is who I am. But mostly what he does in Scripture is he shows us who he is. And so even at the you know, the first page of Scripture, and when we’re seeing creation, what we need to realize is everything is obeying God. God is introduced to to us on the pages of Scripture as the High King of heaven, because he. Speaks, and everything obeys His voice, and there is nothing more kingly than that. So as the story progresses, how, where do you Where else do you see his sovereignty, his reign, his rule?

Melissa Kruger

Yeah, so like when you speak, like if I speak to my dog, Gus, he doesn’t obey me. He doesn’t do what I ask, right? I say, Gus, sit. I have no sovereignty over Gus, okay? Whereas God speaks and says, Let there be light, and there’s light, so I can’t even get my dog to obey me. But yet, God can make whole worlds come to be Yeah, yeah. I mean, so you’re right. This is this, like, tremendous thing that only God can do, that only

Courtney Doctor

God can do. And as the story goes on, we see, I mean, it’s he’s reigning and ruling over Pharaoh’s heart. He’s reigning and ruling over the time. So if we think of God’s sovereignty as his rule and reign over all things at all times and all places. I mean, is there anything that’s not under

Melissa Kruger

okay, but let me ask you this though Pharaoh was doing wrong things, yep. And that’s really uncomfortable, because it says God hardened his heart. So talk to me about that. Because Are you saying? Are you saying, Is God the author of sin?

Courtney Doctor

Nope. Let me just be real clear on that one. I just want that one to come out just in case that is not the author of sin. Yeah. So it’s, it’s this tension that scholars will call the tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. And it is. It’s the tension is there in salvation. The tension is there in our obedience. The tension is there that I want to talk through some of these things. The tension is there in our prayer life. But one thing that’s really comforting to me in that is one of my professors explained to me that there are three great mysteries, and they are the fact that Jesus was fully man and fully God, the fact that we serve one God who exists in three persons. So the Trinity, human responsibility and divine sovereignty. And I’m like, Oh, good, good. So we so are we going to fully explain it? No, we are not. Are we going to talk about how it plays out and hold it in that beautiful tension? Yes, yes, we are.

Melissa Kruger

And I think this is important. God’s sovereignty over the actions of humanity does not deny that humans are responsible and agents in what they are doing. How those both can be true? I do not understand, but what I do understand, how can God promise anything without being over everything, over everything. Because think about this. In Genesis, we hear the promise of the seed who will come and crush the serpent’s head. We hear that promise. Well, what happens if, somewhere along the way, you know, there’s no Rachel Mary, you know, having a child somewhere along the way, like some something happens at any one step. What if there was no king David, right? What if, you know, what if all these things don’t happen? Yeah,

Courtney Doctor

and all through Scripture, it’s God calls his shot, doesn’t he? Yeah, constantly, yeah. I’m going to do this. I am going to do this. I’m going to do this. One of my favorite verses is in isaiah 46 where he says, I am God alone and there is no other and then he says, I am the one who knows the end from the beginning. None of us can say that, because we’re not we’re not sovereign, we’re not in charge. But God is literally reigning and ruling over again all things, all places, all times, and so how did you become convinced of God’s sovereignty?

Melissa Kruger

I had a big fight with my brother. I remember he came home from college, because you go off to college and you get really smart, you know? Yeah, so he came older, right? Yeah, he’s older. Big Brother comes home from college, and he starts talking to me about God’s sovereignty. He’s like, God’s sovereignty, God’s sovereignty over everything, even salvation. And I know I came out in my teenage self with something like my God. You know that it’s always my God, right? Right? My God would not act like that. I mean, we had a huge fight about it. And I remember sitting down that evening, and I was opening my Bible, and I was a little bit convicted of how I was just so assured he was absolutely wrong when he was talking about this, because I just couldn’t believe that’s how God would work. And I really believed, no, no, I chose God. I chose to become a Christian, you know, so it was all of these things, and I wasn’t raised in a tradition that talked about this, you know, I didn’t. I had never come across my doorstep before, so to speak. And so I remember what I did that night. I said, You know what? God, if this is true about it, teach me from your work.

Courtney Doctor

And I remember, wait, stop, go back. Because. That isn’t Say that again. What did you because that’s a beautiful prayer. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger

it, maybe it, maybe it’s what we say it again. Yeah, good, yeah. I mean, I really did a sat there in my frustration with it and said, If it’s true, show it to me in your work. I

Courtney Doctor

love that, because I was really in my I didn’t become a believer until my early 20s, and I was sitting in my first new members class at a church, and he was explaining how God is sovereign over salvation, so the exact same topic. And I just kept raising my hand, you know, I know that’s hard for you to imagine, but it was like, Wait a minute. No. And I finally, I said to him, in this class with other people in the room, I said I was there like, I know. I chose God like it was. I was so right. So I was trying to come at it logically and try to wrap my brain about around it. But I love that even at an early age, you were already just submitting to it and saying, show me like, show me right. Because there’s a lot about this doctrine, this truth about God that can be hard Yes, and that can be this, Miss, this mystery that we, you know, sort of hit up against. I’ve, you know, I’ve said before that at when I hit these mysteries of God, because I think my inclination, like I love your inclination to pray, I think my inclination is I’m going to try and figure this out. And then I’ve realized that my brain weighs approximately three pounds. It was created to last, Lord willing, about 80 years. And it actually diminishes over those. And I want this three pound, 80 year, possibly brain to comprehend the eternal, incomprehensible God. And so there’s a humility that comes that has to be there when we hit against these things that are really hard to understand. And so your response of, I am going to bow my knee before this Lord, and I’m going to trust because he is sovereign, that he’s the one that can show me and that can illuminate and can can reveal himself, yeah, so I just love that that was your posture, and I’m not surprised. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger

so nice. It’s true.

Courtney Doctor

We are nice.

Melissa Kruger

Afterwards I was promising. But I do think, I do think maybe in this is something we talk about. It’s not trusting in our own understanding, you know, it’s, it’s, we’re going to have to, at some ways, submit even our minds to the Lordship of Christ. We often think of our obedience like, Oh, I’m supposed to do what he says. But this doctrine, I’ll say, is really uncomfortable, you know, and I really wrestled with things. Because I remember sitting in my freshman year, I started dating this guy named Mike,

Courtney Doctor

that played out well for you. And by the way, he was

Melissa Kruger

a senior and I was a freshman, and I can remember sitting with him in a place called Pepper’s pizza and arguing with him about this still, because even though I, you know, I’m like, Okay, I wanna. I could start to see it in Scripture. I could start to look at different verses and see it, but I was so wrestling with it, and I was like, Well, how does this not mean we’re just all robots, you know? And so it’s this wrestling. And then the other big question I had was, why on earth do evangelism? Because I was dating him, he fully believed in this doctrine. But one thing he would do every Friday night, he would go and share the gospel on Franklin Street. He was one of those people who’d walk up, hey, you want to talk about Jesus? And I was like, Why do you do that? If only God can open someone, not someone’s eyes, why do you do that? So why do we do this?

Courtney Doctor

Well, I love I had a professor that said, because we don’t know who God has chosen, and so we get to actually preach the gospel, proclaim the truth to everyone. And that’s actually this beautiful invitation into the mission of God, this beautiful invitation to align our lives with the mission of this eternal, completely sovereign God. He does not need us, but he says, once I’ve saved you, I’m actually then going to send you, and you get to know me, and you get to tell other people about me. Does he need us? No. I mean, I have a friend who was saved. She found a Bible. She was walking she was she’s Egyptian, and she was walking through the streets of Cairo, found a Bible, opened at Reddit, and came to faith. So does he need us? No, his spirit and his word are sufficient. But what a privilege, what a privilege to tell others about what God has done in our lives, how he has worked, and then to let God use that as part of what he brings, or what he uses to kind of woo people to Himself. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful thing.

Melissa Kruger

He has chosen means by which he will save people, yes, and it in this process, how will they know if no one preaches to them, yeah, yeah. And so someone has to go exactly, because that’s how we all learned. It exactly someone taught us. Well. He doesn’t need us. It is the means by which he uses. To awaken hearts by His Spirit. So the Spirit is at work always, and he’s taking the word through people, and we get to participate. I know it’s there’s

Courtney Doctor

no greater joy, right? There’s no greater joy than to have your life aligned with this mission of God and to participate with him and what he’s doing. Well, okay, so that’s a that’s always a big question, what is, what role does evangelism have when you’re thinking about the sovereignty of God, the fact that he’s sovereign over salvation, but, but it also impacts our prayer life? Yeah, so we hear that argument too, is, I think, a lot of times when people first start thinking about the sovereignty of God and first start understanding it, you know, we can kind of become hyper focused on it, and we don’t hold some of these things human responsibility in in appropriate tension. And so what difference does prayer make if God is sovereign over all things? So I think about some of the things I’ve been praying for for years, and I know that God is reigning and ruling over all things, that thing I’m praying for, that person I’m praying for at all times. So why do I keep going to Him in prayer over those things? Yeah,

Melissa Kruger

well, and the thing I’ve had to keep saying in my head is because he’s the, actually only one who can do anything about it. Yeah, because he is sovereignly reigning. And I don’t understand how my prayers work with his divine plan. But I know he calls us to pray, he says to do it. And he actually says it is part he’s sovereignly ordained the prayers of the saints to do things right, just as much as our good works. So how he says we were created in Christ, Jesus to do good works he had, which he prepared in advance, which he prepared? Yeah, I mean, it’s this thread walking him. It’s everywhere he actually ordained. Some of those good works are the prayers of the saints as they go before His throne, and they actually do something. I’m not sure there’s the mystery this divine interchange, but because He is all powerful. He’s the one we cry out to.

Courtney Doctor

Has he ever, if you ever experienced that, where, in His sovereignty, he lays something on your heart to pray for, and then he answers it. And I look at that, and I just rejoice in the fact that he wanted to show himself right. He wanted to say, Okay, I’m gonna have you ask for this very specific thing, because I already know I’m going to give it to you and and it’s like, Oh, what if I had never thought to ask for that? Would I have seen it as God’s good provision? But so it’s his sovereignty, even in leading us in prayer, yeah, and then changing us in the process. Yeah? Because even as I pray, or I learn to pray things that are maybe more aligned with God and His will stop praying less that I’ll just have a have a good day. You know, Lord, please help me. Have a good day. Help me, you know, make my life comfy and easy, but learning to align my prayers with who he is like use this hard thing in my life to conform me more to the image of Christ. You know, work out this person’s salvation through the things that you’re doing in their life. Then I’m changed, and it’s part of what he uses then, and just even go back to what you said in the beginning, to conform us more to his will, so using his incommunicable attributes to actually give us more, grow us, change us more with his incommunicable because it attributes, it

Melissa Kruger

reminds us we aren’t powerful. If you think I have to make this happen, you know God’s calls to not be anxious. RCC, this, if there’s one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. One iota, one

Courtney Doctor

one atom, one molecule, one piece of dust, one anything in this whole universe, yeah, one

Melissa Kruger

hair on your head that falls on when without him knowing.

Courtney Doctor

So let’s talk about that when one hair of our head falls and when suffering comes our way, when these things happen. So we’re saying that not one hair falls without him knowing, and that he is reigning and ruling over every particle, every moment that’s hard, when the suffering comes and when the things, when we know he could change it, when we know he could heal, when we know he could save, when we know he could have prevented. So what do we do in that moment when the suffering is

Melissa Kruger

brutal, yeah, I know, and I think this is the biggest point of wrestling for any of us with the sovereignty of God. Because, right, we’re going to talk about the comfort in just a minute, because it is a comfort, but I think it also is this real. Organization. This doesn’t have to be what happened in our mind. Yeah, like, and I, I can even remember, this is when I was my six year old. I had been telling her, God can do anything. He’s Yeah, he can do anything. She falls off of her bike, and she looks at me with tears all over faces. Big skin, knee, Mommy, you said, God can do all things. Why didn’t he protect me from falling off my bike? And isn’t that kind of our question? You know, the six year old hit it on the head, the nail on the head of Hold on, God, why didn’t you protect me from that loss? Why didn’t you protect me from cancer? You know? Why didn’t you protect me from the parents I grew up with? Why didn’t you protect me from losing that child? Why did you not protect me? And I think these are the issues where we aren’t always going to get the answers. So we don’t always get the answer to the why. And I think that is the place we have to trust. Because here’s the good news, God’s sovereignty is one attribute we haven’t talked about the other one. It is paired with his goodness always. And so if here’s the thing, sovereigns can be really bad. Yeah. So you know, we all know dictators who we would not want to be our king, but everything in scripture points to two things. He is sovereign and he is good, and that is what we hold to. So when his sovereignty hits at a particularly painful moment in our story, which we all have, we all have, then we hold the other attributes, and we say, but I know he’s good, and I can’t see it, but I know it’s true, and I’m gonna hold to that even in this darkness. And that is, I think that is walking by faith. I

Courtney Doctor

think it is too I mean, we’re told over and over, you know, don’t use Romans eight with somebody who is going through suffering. But the reality is that when those times hit, please come remind me of Romans eight. Yes, that he works all things together for the good of those who believe. And so that is actually what we anchor our hope in, is that if he’s doing this, if he’s allowing this, then he is doing something good. It’s why Paul says, you know that it will be that we won’t even be able to compare our sufferings with the weight of glory, he’s not diminishing our sufferings in any way. Paul knew sufferings, suffering of every kind, but he’s saying there actually is something so beautiful and so weighty. He talks about the weight of glory and so magnificent that one day, the worst of our sufferings will actually pale in comparison to that. And that can be that can be so hard. But I think when we get to the end of the story and we see what happens in Revelation 21 the first thing God does is wipe the tears away from our eyes. And you know, we just have to remember that it’s he’s not sitting back saying I’m sovereign, and just trust me, it’s all going to be okay. He’s with us in the midst of it, yeah, in the midst of it. And so, yeah, oh, well,

Melissa Kruger

this reminds me of Acts two, because not only is he in the midst of it, he entered into the heart. Yeah. And the worst evil was actually the crucifixion of the Son of God, yeah, the only, the only one who never deserved any suffering, you know, you know, in any point, because the reality that we’re living in a fallen world is because of, you know, our forefathers, Adam and Eve like this is not the world God created. This is the world that’s part of the fall. And we all suffer because of the fall, even even things are our fault. I’m not saying everything’s our fault, but like all of death flows from what happened in Eden. So in Acts two, and this is Acts 223, and what? Here’s what it says this, Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. But then listen to he says, You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Do you see divine sovereignty and man’s responsibility are right here. And then so God raised Him up losing the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. And so we have this picture. The worst evil that ever occurred was works for our good. And so when I can’t understand how the evil that’s happening in my life, you know, is could be worked for good, because there’s some things I know all of us would be like. I have no that that can never be good when, when my eyes can’t see, that my eyes can look back and say, he did this for me. Can I trust that God? Because this is a God who has scarred hands, right? He. Entered into the story, and he put himself at the will of lawless men and was crucified them according to the divine plan. This is, this is this dance of men. Are real actors. Those men actually did that, but God was over it. Yeah, for an ultimate good. I love

Courtney Doctor

that, couching it in that knowing what God has already done. I mean, that’s Romans 832, right? Where he says that he who has given us His own Son, how will he not also, with him, graciously give us all things? And so it’s, you know, it’s that argument from the greater to the lesser. He’s already done the greatest thing, and he’s already suffered the greatest evil, and he’s already been crucified for our sins, and so how will He not also with us? Give us with him, give us all things we just recently, you and I just heard somebody say that God’s sovereignty. What did he say? He said, Oh, that this was so that we need to, each night, lay our head on the pillow of God’s sovereignty. Lay our head on the pillow of God’s sovereignty. And I love that word picture of what that looks like at the end of each day, to again, remind ourselves God is sovereign and God is good and so in the midst of it all. But we have to know God, don’t we? We have to know God in order to know those things well. So we’ve hinted at this. But how does this doctrine, this truth, this beautiful, magnificent and sometimes hard truth? How does it impact you specifically, on a daily basis.

Melissa Kruger

Honestly, sometimes it confronts me even when I’m at like, a red light you, and I want to be like, Oh, why is light red? And then it reminds me, okay, not an iota, not an iota, is outside of his will. So it’s actually the reason I can rejoice always pray continually, for this is the will of God in you, in Christ, Jesus. So it’s God’s sovereignty that fuels my joy. Yeah, because the frustrations of my life, when your house floods, when you get ants, when you get fleas, whatever you know, all the things have you had fleas? Well, I was thinking I just read Corrie 10. Boom, I was reading the hiding watchmakers daughter. It’s a really good new biography about Corrie 10. Boom, so it was a place, so I actually don’t have fleas in my house. Just wanted to check. But when those things come and it was interesting, that’s, that’s the lie in the story, her sister Betsy looks and says, We’re even going to thank God for the fleece, because they have to have a purpose. And Corey is like, Oh, I love Corey. I resonate with her, like, who’s Betsy? How is she that good? But then the fleas were the very reason that the guards wouldn’t come in while they were teaching other people the scriptures. So there was a reason he ordained the fleas I know, and if, if I live that way, maybe this long line at the grocery store is because God wants me to talk to someone in the line. Maybe my child’s sick and I’m at the doctor’s office today, which feels real inconvenient to me today, because there’s someone in the waiting room I’m supposed to talk to. What if we viewed everything in my day as a divine appointment rather than a random happenstance. Ooh, that’s good.

Courtney Doctor

I like that, yeah. But even that red light, I remember one time sitting at a I was so frustrated that the person in front of me had stopped and that I was now stuck at this red light, and then, oh, and then it turned green, and the car in front of me wasn’t going but their pause as soon a car ran the red line, yeah, and I it was kind of one of those moments for me too, of recognizing, oh, I mean, and it’s, it’s not always that God’s sovereignty plays out so that, oh, look, that was so in my favor. I, I’ve shared this story with you before, but we at church one morning, we’re singing the beautiful hymn, whatever God ordains is right, and it’s it’s a magnificent hymn, but those are the words, whatever God ordains is right. So that truth is really resting in the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God, right? Whatever he ordains, it’s good and right. And while we were singing, the pastor received the news that he then had to come deliver to the congregation when we finished singing that song, and the news was was horrific. An entire family had been in a car accident, and only one of them survived. And so to have just heard that truth, to have just sung, to proclaim that truth, and then to have that moment of, do you believe what you just sang in? Really one of the most horrific things that you can imagine. Those are the moments where we have to so now. Know who our God is and grow in our ability. But I love even how you started this conversation of when you didn’t know what the sovereignty of God was and how it impacted you, you asked him to show you, and I think that that is such a great prayer for all of us as we wrestle with this truth that is beautiful and hard all at the same time, depending on the circumstances. Because sometimes God’s sovereignty is easy, like at my red light, like, look at that sovereignty of God kept me from getting it, and other times it’s it’s really, really hard. I know you and I both talked about Psalm 139 before, and how that plays into the sovereignty. But, you know, David claims, I mean, he’s like, Where can I go? That you won’t know me, that you won’t see me, that I that you won’t like, there’s nowhere. And so I think sometimes we feel like that. Sometimes we feel like, I don’t want you to know me like that. I don’t want you to reign and rule over every you know, every possible thing in my life. But he ends the the psalm by saying, search me and know me. And he’s inviting this deep knowledge and this the sovereignty of God into his life. And I think it’s because David came to know that the love of God is as deep as as the knowledge of God, as the sovereignty of God. And so holding those two things together always. If

Melissa Kruger

people want to read more about the sovereignty of God, are there any books you’d recommend?

Courtney Doctor

Oh, I think I think RC Sproles, chosen, chosen by God. Is that the title? Yeah, we’ll put them in the show notes. And then you had a j i packer, one that you really there’s

Melissa Kruger

evangelism the sovereignty of God. There’s knowing God. We also are reading as a team, all things. What’s it called? Count it all joy. Count it all joy. Helen Rosevear And so what’s interesting about that? It’s not a explanation of God’s sovereignty, but illustration, illustration of it. So she goes through all these different things in her life, each chapter is almost her looking back and saying, I wish I had counted all joy. Because James one it actually specifically says, count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, because you know that your test, the testing of your faith, produces, eventually, steadfastness. And so it’s this knowledge that God is working, yes, that allows us to kill it all joy, right? And so the thing about this doctrine is it’s not, it’s not intended to fuel heaviness. It’s intended to fuel joy. And that so she reflects on her life in it, I think it’s a really beautiful way. And she suffers it.

Courtney Doctor

Oh yeah. And she suffered, but she looks back and and recognizes how God was working all things together for the good of those who believe yes. In some ways, this whole episode has been kind of some hard truths, right? Some some deep truths about God, which is why we called it. You know, we didn’t call this the Deep Dish podcast only because we love deep dish pizza, which we do, but we called it that because we really did want to have a place to have these deep conversations about the deep truths of God. And so this was this was a harder one. This was definitely a deeper one, but no other friends Exactly. These are the conversations that you and I love to have. Talk about God’s sovereignty and our suffering. But I do love, you know, we love to wrap up each episode with some type of question. So the question I want to ask you today is you started the whole episode off talking about, ask, praying, asking God to show you His sovereignty. And so just as far as prayer goes, where does Melissa Krueger pray? Where is your favorite place to

Melissa Kruger

pray? Yeah, I Well, one thing I can say, it’s even the method of prayer. I started keeping a journal when I was 14. I’m terrified. What’s in these journals. I have never opened them back up, but they were prayer journals, writing a prayer to the Lord every day. So actually, it’s funny when I think about prayer, I often think about writing, but it’s on my back porch. I have this porch that looks out to these trees, and I watch the seasons pass as these trees change. And it’s just this place of peace, and it really does feel like a prayer porch for me.

Courtney Doctor

Yeah, it’s a beautiful porch. Yeah, yeah, you’ve been I want to come pray. I have food on your

Melissa Kruger

and and you know what I have memories of? I also have memories of dear friends coming who are suffering greatly, and that’s the porch where we sit and we pray together. And like, I have these memories, literally, one friend coming, and we all laid hands on her, and we just prayed for her. And it’s that porch, it’s my praying porch that’s beautiful. What about you? You

Courtney Doctor

know, we moved into a new house a couple years ago, and so the way this house is designed, the kind of space that I go to is actually upstairs. And. There’s this big comfy chair that that I sit in to read. So so my rhythm is I start my morning, well, start my morning with a cup of coffee, but then when I go upstairs, I pray first, and so I get on my knees and I kind of lay my head on this comfy chair we talked about laying our head on the sovereignty of, you know, the pillow of God’s sovereignty. And so I’m laying my head on this pillow from my couch, but I don’t go to sleep, and so, but I pray there and and then I actually that I have a book called piercing heaven. It’s the prayers of the Puritans. And so I after I pray, I read a prayer, and it has given me new language and ways to pray. It’s really beautiful. And then I do my my scripture reading. I actually don’t journal. I have journaled before, but it’s and I enjoy it when I do especially journaling my prayers, it slows me down in that it does, yeah, but that is, that is where I pray. And yeah, thanks for having this conversation. It’s, it was a good one. It was a hard one. It was a beautiful one. But if this episode was helpful to you, we would love for you to like it, to share it, and to leave us a comment wherever you’re watching this. Just tell us where you pray. Tell us how you have become convinced of God’s sovereignty. We would love to hear from from you and join us next time on the deep dish.