Sovereignty without Principle?

Sovereignty without Principle?
Job 12: 1-25

My wife and I were talking about Job the other day, and she told me about two different people in a church to which she had belonged who had given up their Christian faith and left the church when they went through the horrific experience of losing a child in a traffic accident. When I talk with people who have had that kind of experience, they too are inclined to express grieved puzzlement: “Why did God allow it to happen?” The mystery to me is the fact that people ask the question. It implies a different understanding of God from any that I find natural. For me, part of that mystery is the assumption that God has a micromanager relationship with the world. In this connection, the story of Job is the exception that proves the rule. God does not usually manage people’s lives in the way God manages Job’s. Another aspect of the mystery is the assumption that the world would be a better place and humanity would be better off if God had such a micromanager relationship with the world. The world would then be a place in which nothing tough ever happened and nobody ever had to make responsible decisions (because God would always override irresponsible decisions). One question behind the various puzzlements is, “What does it mean for God to be sovereign in the world?”...