I remember hearing this saying a lot when I was growing up. I also remember sharing it with a friend of mine as a young adult who scoffed at the saying because to her it meant a superstitious myth. Well I wasn't prepared to make her agree with me but I figured that maybe because I had a spiritual upbringing and she didn't, it was easier for me to believe this phrase without questioning its depth. But the irony of this phrase is that you don't have to have a spiritual upbringing to believe its meaning. You just have to live a little longer and this phrase will undoubtedly make you a believer.
Take the people for example on 9/11 who missed their train, got stuck in traffic, one man stopped to get Dr Scholl's for his new shoes, they were hurting his feet or like my very close friend who took the day off because it was her birthday; her building was the last to fall. We can all interpret this phrase however we want based on whatever we choose, " the universe speaks" or "God is in control," whichever works. But I tend to think that these two interpretations co-relate and the clarification is there to prove it. God is in control simply because of His omniscient atrribute. He is here, there and everywhere all at the same time. This may seem like a mystery as to how this could be possible but if we really think about it God really is everywhere and no one should really need any convincing. God's Spirit is in all of us, that is what keeps us alive. The only time He is not with us is when His Spirit leaves our bodies, then we are dead. So based on that simple truth we are connected to God even if we don't want to admit it, we still are because we are human.
The connection between this phrase and God's control of the world and everything in it is really seen in how we are prompted to do or not to do something however simple. Funny thing is these promptings are always God's way of running interference in our daily lives to protect us from ourselves or stuff from happening to us with the help of angelic beings. It may sound like mystical mumbo jumbo but in reality how do we explain the unexplained, like the man and his wife who are frequent flyers; he always takes the window seat. This particular trip she slips into the window seat before he could. Unfortunately there was a plane crash with survivors, one of which he was. She was flown from the window and didn't make it.
Sometimes we can't explain some things that happen in life so we chock it up as a part of life. Other times we may after looking back, see how stuff happens when they happen and why they happen. The word to the wise is when stuff happens that we don't understand, we just need to see them as the proverbial handwriting on the wall that we don't really need to "kick against the pricks" because the universe maybe screaming at us that God is in control and we really need to chill and let things be as they are. I have a dear family member who would still be here today if only he would have listened to the screams of the universe when different things happened that were trying to prevent him from going on that trip. Sometimes the missed appointments, the canceled date, the shifted schedule, the choice of transportation, the change of clothes (this one seems cynical I know but don't get caught wearing the wrong colors in some parts of the world), the baby's gender, the choice of mate, thought we just got settled, now we gotta move again, whatever it is, let it be because God is still in control. I believe the prayer of St Francis of Assisi one of my favorite mantra settles this little phrase, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. " With that said, reasons known or unknown, everything happens for a reason because God is in control of the universe.
Sisterly.
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