The 'Powers that Be' and 'Are'

“Be patient with the ‘powers that be.’ They are not the ‘powers that are.’” Chad, our daughter Suzanne’s husband, sent me that quote by e-mail.

My wife Carol and I recently visited them at their home, about an hour’s drive from our residence in Southern Pines, North Carolina. During our visit, I mentioned what I perceived to be an insensitive remark made to me by one of my overseers at the carpet manufacturing company where I work.

“That’s the kind of thing I have to put up with,” I told Chad, who teaches math to public school sixth-graders. Suzanne instructs third-graders.

After receiving Chad’s e-mail, I felt bad that perhaps I had conveyed to him that I didn’t seem to believe that God’s “powers that are” are greater than this world’s “powers that be.”

That term “powers that be” is dictionary-defined as “the established government of authority” or “any group that holds power over a certain entity.”

Often used as a reference to supervisors, “higher-ups” and “those in charge,” the term “powers that be” comes from Romans 13:1, as translated in the “King James Version” of the Bible: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”

Because of our fallen natures, we tend to rebel against “the powers that be.”

Years ago I sat behind a thin, old designer named Charlie Younkers in the Bigelow Carpet design studio. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Charlie, who never married, turned toward me one morning as I worked on a design and said, “I don’t like George (our supervisor).”

“Why not?” I asked.

“He’s the boss,” Charlie said.

That said a lot about human nature. Like ungrateful Israelites wandering in the wilderness after being delivered from slavery, we tend to complain about “the powers that be,” no matter who they are. We may wonder how they could be “ordained of God.” Even if we believe they are God-ordained, we may murmur about them anyway, just because we feel like grumbling!

Is God in control of all things? Let’s look at these verses:

“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

“The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalms 24:1).

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God” (Psalm 90:2).

“And Jesus…spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:18-19).

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:1-2).

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

God is ultimately in control, though we may not like present circumstances or the “powers that be.”

While serving almost two years in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era, I saw this quotation scrawled on a wall: “We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to do the impossible for the unthankful.”

(Get that thought into your spirit, and your morale will be lower than a snake’s belly.)

I’m learning that Christian faith has a lot to do with practicing patience when I’m inconvenienced or think “the powers that be” are undeserving of respect. If Romans 13:1 (“the powers that be are ordained of God”) is true, then I can “Be patient with the powers that be. They are not the powers that are.” God is in control.