Who can stop the Lord Almighty?

It doesn’t make sense anymore.

It used to.

But not now.

It’s not just a tension,

not just a holy mystery

you hold with trembling hands —

it’s something sour now.

Something that curdles in the soul.

I used to believe God was in control.

A God whose will could not be frustrated.

A God of meticulous control —

every atom,

every star,

every thought,

every action —

all moving under His hand.

We used to sing it —

“Who can stop the Lord Almighty?”

Loud.

Certain.

No one.

Nothing.

God always gets His way.

(At least, that’s what we said,

but maybe not with those exact words.)

And then there was that other song —

“Blessed Be Your Name.”

We sang it with hands lifted high,

with smiles,

with swelling hearts.

“You give and take away,

you give and take away…”

Chanted, almost triumphant,

as the music built.

But I know where that line comes from.

Job.

A man crushed by grief.

A man sitting in ash and rubble.

And maybe — just maybe —

Job, like his friends,

didn’t really understand what was happening either.

Because if you follow him through the rest of the book,

you don’t find peace.

You find a man raging,

wailing,

sobbing into the silence.

A man whose theology is breaking apart

because the pain is too real,

too much.

And I get that now.

Because if God always gets His way —

if every brutal, bleeding thing

is the outworking of His hand —

then He is tangled up

in every act of abuse,

every crushed child,

every weapon raised in hate,

every system rigged against the poor.

And if that’s what sovereignty means —

then it isn’t mystery anymore.

It’s cruelty.

And I can’t believe that.

Not anymore.

Yeah, I could reach for a verse or two.

I could build a neat sermon.

I know the tricks.

I’ve used them.

But Scripture isn’t a weapon.

It’s a window.

And the window points to Jesus.

When we look at Christ —

the bleeding God —

we see the truth.

God is not the hand behind the knife.

God is the wounded one.

God is the broken one.

God is the one who bleeds and bears and breaks open the gates of hell.

He doesn’t ordain suffering.

He bears it.

He doesn’t destroy.

He heals.

He doesn’t crush.

He raises up.

If you want to know what God is like —

look at the torn flesh of Jesus.

Look at the One

who says no to death and hell

by letting it pierce Him through.

Look at the One

who steps into the wreckage —

not to cause it,

but to undo it.

I haven’t got it all figured out.

Not by a long way.

But I have a compass.

I have a guide.

His name is Jesus.

The litmus test for all orthodoxy,

for every word spoken about God,

for every thought I dare to think —

is found in and through the God-Man, Jesus.

The bleeding, rising, reconciling Christ.

This isn’t the way it was meant to be.

It never was.

And even now —

God is here,

whispering,

bleeding,

healing,

raising,

making all things new.

—-

- Rev’d Jon Swales,