Recently, I read in a national newspaper that one of the world’s most popular songs for a karaoke performance is My Way by Frank Sinatra. Sadly, the same article informed me that the same song is also a top choice for people having a non-religious funeral. What a pride-filled declaration the lyrics declare.
In light of the culture we live in today, this is no great surprise. Increasingly, society has become set on championing individuals who simply do whatever feels right for them since many believe they are masters of their own destiny.
This, however, is not only a twenty-first century problem. God’s Word reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun (see Eccl 1:9).
From the beginning of the Book of Genesis, we see how Adam and Eve decided their plan was better than God’s. This continued on with Cain who did not honor God nor do what was right, but became so full of anger and jealousy that it led to the murder of his brother Abel. We are still in the early chapters of Genesis when we read that God was grieved to His heart because humankind had become so wicked and evil. So much so, He even regretted making them, and had decided to wipe them all out.
Oh, we say, if only people would realize God’s ways are best, His plan is perfect, and He works all things for His glory and our good.
Yet, can we pause here together and consider that perhaps you have at times—like me—wandered off on your own way? That you instead took matters into your own hands, having decided your plan was the best way forward? But ultimately things failed to end up in a good place?
Maybe it was borne out of frustration because God just didn’t seem to be answering prayer and waiting was too hard? Maybe God’s way just did not make any sense? Or was it that we simply followed the desires of our sinful hearts and chose disobedient independence?
How grateful we are for God’s Spirit who prompts us when we go wrong, and for God’s abundant grace, mercy, and forgiveness when we come back to Him in obedience, recognizing His ways really are higher and better than ours.
It is wise advice indeed that we read in Proverbs 3:5–6, which calls us to trust the Lord wholeheartedly, not rely on our own understanding, but acknowledge Him in all our ways, submitting to His Lordship as He guides us along the right path.
It is quite the opposite of wise choices that we read of in the account recorded in Genesis 11, the story we familiarly know as “The Tower of Babel.” It was only a few generations since God’s redemption from the Flood. Yet we see people had again moved away from desiring the presence of God or obeying His commands.
God had told both Adam and Noah His plan for humankind was for them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Yet here we read that the people instead settled in a plain of Shinar and decided to build a city and a tower that would reach the heavens.
Scripture tells us the materials they used were chosen to establish a permanent and impressive destination. Their disobedience was further fueled by pride, as they were determined to make a name for themselves.
It was all about them. Their way. Their plans. They knew best. They would be great.
So in response to their sinful, prideful disobedience, we read of God’s judgment upon them as He stepped in and confused their communication, separating them by language and geography.
So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why its name was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth (Gen 11:8–9).
Thankfully, for all of us, although the account of the Tower of Babel is one of sin and judgment, the story does not end there! At the end of Genesis 11, we are introduced to Abram, and as we read on we see how God, in His redemptive plan for history, shows His covenant faithfulness, promising to make Abram (whose name would become Abraham) into a great nation with a great name through whom all generations would be blessed.
Continuing on throughout the Old and New Testaments, we see the outworking of all these promises. All ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.
It is thrilling when we think of how the story of Babel fits into God’s grand narrative. His plan worked out despite the confusion many languages created and that the people were scattered across the earth because of their pride and disobedience.
Let’s take a moment and look forward to the climax of God’s plan as we get a glimpse into the throne room of heaven as described in Revelation 7:9–10.
“Here was an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…they were shouting out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”
Wow! What a day that will be.
In the meantime, may we be encouraged to keep trusting our God who is full of loving-kindness, enduringly faithful, powerfully wise, and rich in mercy.
May we walk in His way, choosing to believe that He knows best and is committed to working out His good purposes for those whom He loves with an unfailing love.
