(If you missed it, you can read part one of Sovereignty here.)

What God is doing here is not blame-shifting or passing the buck on the “weeds in his field,” the evils of the world.

God is rightly declaring the origin of the evil of this world to be a direct result of the hands of Satan at work. The perpetuation of evil and wickedness throughout history is evidence of the continued schemes of the devil and the plan he has set in motion – to include countless human lives and souls, only to be counted and fully known at the day of harvest.

But the parable does not end here.

The owner of the field doesn’t throw up his hands and pack it in for the season, leaving his field and good seed to choke. He doesn’t drag out the plow and till it all up – wheat, weeds, and what-not.

But the servants had a mind to ask the field owner’s permission to go weed-eating, to pull out the weeds mixed in and amongst the wheat. We do much the same when our hearts long for a god who would rid this world of all ills and evils TODAY. (Not tomorrow or in His time, but now.) We do much the same when we cannot perceive a world where a sovereign God can handle both the wheat and the weeds, weaving them into a perfect master plan. We, like the servants, ask for a pulling of the weeds.

The field owner says, “No, not yet.” God says to our question of injustice, of suffering, of His sovereignty, “No, not yet.”

God has a beautiful and glorious plan for the wheat He planted in His field. Nothing can thwart that plan. He is sovereign enough to handle the weeds, to redeem their existence.

For believers, everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.² In fact, He is all-sovereign enough to handle both the wheat and the weeds existing and growing at the same time.

“No,” the field owner answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.”

This is a God I can trust. In and out of PCS season. In peacetime and in wartime. This is a God to whom I can raise my hands and sing out, “It is well with my soul.” While I may not know what any day in this military life will hold, my God is holding me. PCS? PTSD? Promotion? A newborn baby? A wayward teen? God is present. He is working in all things. I can trust Him, whether wheat or weeds, for He is sovereign.

¹ Women of the Word, by Jen Wilkins

² The Reason for God, by Tim Keller