I grew up loving and watching sitcoms like “Growing Pains,” “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties.” These families all seemed perfect and their life problems were all easily solved, with lessons learned, in a neat 30 minutes of broadcast time – not counting the commercial breaks. Isn’t this how life is supposed to work? Good guys win. Conflicts solved. Everyone happy.

So when my life didn’t match up, the conflict remained unsolved and the ending wasn’t happy – my obvious conclusion was that something must be wrong. This isn’t how it was supposed to be – or is it?

I don’t think these shows were ever meant to reflect real life, but to give us an escape from it. They weren’t portraying life as it was, but showing what we all wished it could be. Our culture still loves to watch a series or movie or show that epitomizes the ideals of goodness, acceptance, forgiveness, restoration and love. We all still expect and long for happily-ever-afters. We long for the sitcom ending, in our real world.

A lot of life has happened since those days in the 80’s when I watched and believed those television shows. People have failed me. Expectations have gone unfulfilled. Disappointments have often flourished. I have watched wicked people succeed and good people suffer. Adulting, parenting, living has changed my perspective and deepened my understanding of the real world.

But God, has also shaped my expectations and understandings of the real world too and I have to admit, His way is better.

Just as every form of storytelling has an author, or even a whole team, to bring to “life” what we see on a screen – I know that what is happening in the world today has an Author that is weaving together plot lines and bringing to fruition His predetermined happily-ever-after ending, even and especially when I cannot see it. This is called God’s sovereignty.

The rub comes when God does or doesn’t do things in His sovereignty that we think He should or shouldn’t do. We don’t know how to respond or what to do when it’s “not supposed to happen like this” or it’s “not supposed to end this way.” Why now? Why them? Why me?

In my daily Bible reading over the last week or so, I have noticed that time and time again in the books of Chronicles and Kings, God’s sovereignty is shown. He foretold the division of the Israelite Nation into two countries. He foretold how the rulers would rise to and fall from power. Then, He used evil men and heathen nations to accomplish His plans. To those living those years, with their families affected, God’s sovereignty was harsh and hard to comprehend. I struggle to imagine what it must have been like for them, not to know the bigger picture, how God was maneuvering behind the scenes and making things all work out in the end.

During this time, I have also listened to a podcast about Pastor Kennon Vaughan from The Harvest Church in Memphis. I was unfamiliar with his story of being the sole survival of a plane crash. While still hospitalized and recovering from his physical injuries, Vaughan is visited by one of his spiritual mentors, Roy “Soup” Campbell. When Campbell arrived, Vaughan was wrestling with survival guilt and the unimaginable grief of losing so many close friends, most of whom he had invited and insisted get on that plane. Vaughan was asked one question by Campbell that he still asks himself today, “Is He or ain’t He?”

Recently, with events in my own life and in circumstances both nationally and globally, I find myself asking Campbell’s question as well. Is God sovereign or isn’t He? I may not like what is happening around me. I may not have the power to do anything about what is taking place. I may not be able to envision any good coming out of any of this. I may not understand how God will construct a happy ending. BUT how I answer “Is He or ain’t He?” will shape how I will live in this real world.

Knowing He is control, I do not have to fear. Believing He still utilizes the enemies of His people to accomplish His plans, I can rest at night. Trusting He will keep His word, I am assured that He does win in the end and the happily-ever-after He promised will come to be. His sovereignty, along with other aspects of His character, are my hope, my peace and my joy in these days of uncertainty.

I still love a good sitcom and we often have reruns of our favorites playing as background noise in our home. There are recited phrases that have become inside jokes. Mike Seaver and Alex Keaton may have been hotties to me back in the day, but I don’t compare my life, my world to theirs. I still may escape into a show or movie or novel every now and again, but they are no longer a substitute or an ideal of what I think life should be. The real world, with my real, sovereign God is better.

I do not understand His ways and plans. But I rest in the fact that He is also mysterious. (I wrote my thoughts about His unsearchable ways recently. You can find that post here.) When I take my focus off of life’s circumstances and the world’s current events, and zero in on who my God has revealed Himself to be, I know it is all going to work out in the end. This IS how it is supposed to be, because my God is sovereign.