By Chaplain (Col) Stephen W. Leonard, USA, Ret.
“And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:26-28
Hawaii is a delightful place to live, just as Tahiti, or any other South Sea Island for that matter. Switzerland is gorgeous, with spectacular mountains and piercing blue skies, a true “Heidi environment” in which to thrive. New York or Paris are enticing places for city lovers.
Who would not love to live in places such as these? But all the people in the world cannot live in them, nor do they end up living there. Each one ends up within their God-given boundaries.
You may live in states like Georgia, or Kansas, or Idaho and in countries like Peru, Congo, or Ukraine. Why are all the people alive today sovereignly scattered across this world? Many live in places I personally would not choose to, if it were the last place on earth, while others live in paradise-type settings. All of our boys at the Youth Home grew up in various States of these United States, and one boy is from Guernsey in the English Channel.
I have always wondered why some people live where they do; maybe isolated, barren, unspeakably hot, or even the opposite, frozen, and their accompanying extremities. Yet people live in all these places regardless of terrible living conditions or in what WE would consider more luxuriant circumstances. These places are not so overloaded with so many people you cannot find room to move.
The principles of evolution can never explain or produce the why of or where the world population lives. This is but one explanation of this theory’s total fallibility in explaining what really is.
What does explain all of this is God’s revealed sovereignty in the location and the circumstances in which the world population lives. He has determined the boundaries, borders, and places that people inhabit. He has spread them across the globe within their distinct boundaries and borders.
When you wonder why people dwell in what some have called “God-forsaken places,” you recognize the Providence of Almighty God, and not a randomness that has no explanation or rationality to it.
We inhabit where God chooses to place us. He gives us our neighbors for a purpose. He ordains the place of our habitation. It is for us to seek out God’s purposes and fulfill them to the best of our gifts and calling. Thrive for His glory where God has put you.
Encouragement
“Whate’er my God ordains is right: His holy will abideth; I will be still whate’er He doth, and follow where He guideth. He is my God; though dark my road, He holds me that I shall not fall: wherefore to Him I leave it all.”(1st verse of Samuel Rodgast’s hymn, Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right,” 1675)
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