Does God control everything

 God is sovereign in all things, He created heaven and earth, He made all things, He knows all things, He is the Supreme God and the source of all power and authority. He is the Alpha and Omega.

Religion has resulted in the invention of a new meaning for the word "sovereign," which basically means God controls everything.

The way sovereignty" is taught today is a real faith killer, unfortunately this is the doctrine that is being preached in some of our churches.

There is absolutely nothing that happened in the universe that God does not know about, as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, He has no limitations. God is sovereign but He does not applaud all things that happen, reason may not be apparent to you but He certainly permits them and work out something good. God works not just some things, but all things according to the counsel of His own will, Eph1:11.All things work together for our good does not mean that God is behind the bad situation but God does permit or allows it for the purpose of the eventual glorification.

The belief that God controls everything that happens to us is one of the devil's biggest inroads into our lives. If this belief is true, then our actions are irrelevant, and our efforts are meaningless, then what will be, will be.

It is assumed that since God is the paramount or supreme ruler that nothing can happen without His approval. That means he approves everything that happens .

Does He approve evil? If we say He approves everything, we are saying that He approves evil too. That is not what the Scriptures teach. In 2 Peter 3:9, Peter said, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance".  This clearly states that it is not the Lord's will for anyone to perish. 

God is sovereign in the sense that He is paramount and supreme. There is no one higher in authority or power, but that does not mean He exercises His power by controlling everything in our lives, can God lead one to sin because He wants a great testimony from the person? Did God plant Rahab the prostitute at Jericho because she needed to save the two Israelites? What was the devil doing in the gathering of the Sons of God in the book of Job?

Typical teaching on the sovereignty of God puts Jesus in the driver's seat with us as passengers. On the surface that looks good. However, the Scriptures described how each of us being behind the wheel of our own lives. We are the one doing the driving, and we have all encountered the disastrous results of doing our own thing. We are supposed to take directions from the Lord, but He doesn't do the driving for us, God gave us the power to control our destinies.

If we believe that God controls everything, good or bad, to happen to us, it gives us some temporary relief from confusion and condemnation, but in the long-term, it slanders God, hinders our trust in God, and leads to passiveness.

Another implication believing that God controls even the bad is that it fault the scripture that we have free will, and we are able to make choices.

Also that we are robotics living a scripted or programmed life on earth.

When we are faced with  bad situations, God becomes the culprit of bad events.