God knows what He’s doing. That may sound like an oversimplification relative to our complex world, but oftentimes, the simple view is best. Even Longfellow recognized, “In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

Indeed, God knows what He’s doing. That said, I can rest easily.

Evelyn and I talk a lot during our twenty-five-minute drive to and from school throughout the week. We cover multitudes of topics. Some are serious. Others are more daydreamy. Two weeks ago, a song from The Lost Boys soundtrack carried us down the roadway. As it did, we wondered aloud what we would do if we became vampires. That was fun. Last week, we wondered what we’d be like had we been born in the 1880s. I doubted out loud that I’d have been a pastor. She agreed. She figured me for a lawman, but only after admitting the possibility that I might have owned a saloon. I agreed—minus the saloon. Standing behind a bar all day is not how I’d prefer to spend my days. Besides, notoriously shady behaviors and trades were associated with saloons, none of which fit my character.

Why not a pastor? I don’t know. I just don’t think I would’ve been one. Either way, as a believer today or in the yesteryear of 1880, I’m sure I’d continue to say, “God knows what He’s doing.” I’d have been right where He wanted me. I just happen to think it would’ve been a role requiring a gunfight or two.

There are plenty of things about which I’m certain. I love my wife, and I love the family and life God has been so gracious to grant me, just to name a few. Another is that I’m right where God wants me to be. I think that bothers some folks. In fact, I know it does. There’s a statistic out there somewhere reporting that at any given moment in a pastor’s ministry, at least 30% of his congregation wishes they had a different pastor. I don’t know if that’s entirely true in my home congregation. Although, statistics are stubborn things. Let’s just say I hope it’s closer to 10%. Either way, I know there are likely some who, if they got the chance, would actually work to lift it from 10% to 30%. Every congregation has those people. We have them, too.

But here’s the thing. When you are immovably confident that God knows what He’s doing in your life and that you are right where you belong, then there’s little chance that a disparaging alligator lurking around you (no matter how big and powerful the gator might be) is going to frighten you away, let alone move you closer to the safety of another shore apart from Christ. In this sense, the simple and supreme excellency (as Longfellow described) of God’s omniscient care becomes an impenetrable barrier between you and the ever-vigilantly circling gators. And by ever-vigilant, you know what I mean. They’re always looking for a way to get you. They’re hoping to find a loophole in your faithfulness—an unguarded middle space in your life—so that they can accuse you, finding you guilty of failings they were sure you’d eventually commit.

That’s an interesting juxtaposition, isn’t it; the certainty of God’s gracious care and the certainty that someone will fail? In response, there’s a quotation I’ll sometimes share when standing before pro-life crowds, especially since it so often seems gators endlessly circle the pro-life cause. It was Babe Ruth who said, “You just can’t beat someone who won’t quit.” I should add my own words to that. A confident person cannot be a quitter.

There’s another essential simplicity to keep in mind in this regard, and it’s what gives the sureness described its impervious quality. When someone is immovably certain God has him right where He wants him, while at the same time, he knows he’s a sinner in need of daily repentance and forgiveness, whatever unguarded middle spaces an alligator may find, they become relatively inconsequential. Instead, they’re received as opportunities for self-reflection, amending, and carrying on in God’s extraordinary forgiveness. What were intended to be piercing accusations could only ricochet like raindrops, ultimately beading up and flowing back into the gator’s swampy mess.

Faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins, no matter what those sins may be, becomes the Christian’s foundation. Even better, when the Christian knows that God stands at the ready to dispense His immeasurably wonderful grace to the penitent sinner, that foundation becomes mountain-like in its durability.

I should clarify something before concluding.

God’s grace isn’t cheap. We do not live as we like assuming God is a divine Pez dispenser of grace (Romans 6:1-2). I say this because in order to know what God’s love is, it’s just as important to know what it isn’t. For one, it wasn’t an economical effort. It was costly. He paid top dollar. Look at the cross and see. It’s there you’ll behold the jeweled elements of certainty’s concrete. God loved you that much. Knowing this, Saint Paul’s words in Romans 8:31-39 ring truer than ever before:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I don’t know about you, but I almost expected to read the word “alligators” somewhere in Saint Paul’s list.