The premise of the show is that the main character, Sam, travels through time "leaping" from one point in time to another and all within his own lifetime. When Sam leaps his mind inhabits the body of the person he leaps into and that person's mind leaps into Sam's body in the future. After the first couple of episodes you find out that God is the one directing Sam's leaps in an effort to, as the show says, "put right what once went wrong." Sam rescues people from death, changes the course of people's lives, and even helps bring justice where injustice originally prevailed. It is a noble thought and it is interesting to see how Sam is able to change the future by helping to adjust the past.
As I started watching shows I had not watched in over 20 years, a certain aspect of the show caused me to rethink my view of the show. Yes, I still enjoy the show, but the idea that God needed Sam to "put right what once went wrong" really stood out to me. This idea that things in the past needed to be changed is more deeply theological than we would originally think. We all have parts of our past that we would like to change if we were able to "leap" into the past or jump in a Delorean with Marty McFly. But what we need to ask ourselves is could we change things?
There is a theological term called sovereignty. When it is used in reference to God, we refer to God as being sovereign, exercising supreme control over everything. This means there is not one aspect of existence where God is not in control. (Yes, God does give us freewill to choose to follow Him or not, but that is a deeper discussion for another day.) What that means for us is two things. First off, there is nothing to be put right that once went wrong. According to God's sovereign will, things went right the first time. Secondly, we can rest assured that God is in control, even when we think things are falling apart. There is a certain level of peace that comes with this second aspect of God's sovereignty. The peace comes from the fact we have a good and loving God in control of all we experience in this life. Yes, sometimes we struggle to see the good in the more difficult situations God allows into our lives. But we have to remember that God isn't "doing" anything to us, but He does allow things to occur in our life. Sometimes it is to draw us closer to Him. Other times it is to strengthen our faith in Him. Sometimes it is to get our attention. And yet other times it is to bring glory to Him. Regardless of what we face, we can rest easy knowing that God is sovereign and in control.
I'll close with this, even though we'd all like to "leap" back and change the things in our life that we think went wrong, we need to remember that those events made us who we are today. From birth to death we are a work in progress. As God works to mold us into what He wants us to be, we have to trust in His sovereign control over our lives and the situations He allows into them.
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