Every Square Inch

Every Square Inch. Open on my desk, without any theatrical staging so that I can feign to make my point, are three quotes. One is written on a sticky note citing a former Prime Minister from years ago. The other, on my phone, is from the Pentagon Press Secretary about yesterday’s missile strike on Poland. The third is Scripture, from a king who famously fused thoughts about his kingdom and his faith in song. Each quote circles the same subject: sovereignty.

Abraham Kuyper, theologian and journalist who was also the Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1901-05), said, neither of his career nor his nation, but of far beyond: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said again, for he and others have said it already many times recently about Russian aggression in Ukraine: “When it comes to our security commitments and Article 5 we've been crystal clear that we will defend every inch of NATO territory.”

King David (1010-970 b.c.), in what we have come to call Psalm 24, wrote: “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers” (vv. 1-2).

The confluence of these three quotes, visible on my (very messy) desk at the same time, speaks of sovereignty and gives an example of sovereignty, both. Simultaneously, God is raising and lowering geo-political governments AND causing three disconnected quotes to grab the attention of an easily distracted bloke who sits under the hum of fluorescent lights in a windowless office! Quasars, subatomic particles, La Niña weather patterns, my daughter’s 2:45 appointment with the doctor this afternoon, and the plastic handle that just broke off my liftgate, too—Christ is over all and working through all to bring all things to fullness in himself. Missiles and missions, missives and messes—he’s got the whole world in his hands. The itty-bitty babies, the mommies and the daddies, the brothers and the sisters, the Russians and the Ukrainians … he’s got the whole world in his hands. Every. Square. Inch.