God's Timing

Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Romans 13 tends to make modern readers nervous, mostly because it gets weaponized in arguments about power. But the heart of the chapter isn’t really about politics, it’s about perspective. Paul reminds us that all authority ultimately answers to God, and then pivots quickly to what actually matters: love fulfills whatever law existed in the first place, and the day of full redemption is nearer now than when we first believed. It’s less a civics lesson and more a wake-up call to live alert, in love, because the clock is running on God’s timetable, not ours.

Psalm 75 makes a similar move. It pictures God holding a cup of judgment, deciding who’s raised up and who’s brought low, and lands on this line: exaltation doesn’t come “from the east or the west,” but from God alone. Whatever human power structures seem to dominate a given moment, the psalmist refuses to hand them ultimate authority. Both texts are less concerned with ranking earthly power than with relocating our trust away from headlines and onto the God who alone keeps the real time.

That’s genuinely good news for anxious hearts. You don’t have to solve the world's problems today. You just have to love your neighbor and stay awake to what God is doing.

Devotional Prompts:

Where do you find yourself giving more trust to human power or news cycles than to God’s sovereignty?
What does it look like to “wake up” and love your neighbor well today, regardless of circumstances?

Prayer: Sovereign Lord, You alone hold the cup and keep the time. Free me from anxious trust in lesser powers, and let love be the law I actually live by today. Amen.