Proverbs 21:1

The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord;
he turns it wherever he will.

From Beyond the Bounds, pg 81
Proverbs 21:1 implies this as soon as we remember that Scripture identifies our hearts as the core
of our personalities, from which all our good and bad acts come (see Luke 6:45). If, then, God
turns the king’s heart as easily as we can guide the direction of a small stream of water that is
flowing over our hands, then he shapes everything the king does just as he wants. But if God does
this with kings, who are of all human beings the most sovereignly powerful, then we ought to
expect that he can and does do the same with all of us. In fact, Scripture does not wait for us to
universalize this point from this text. In Psalm 33:13-15 we find: “The LORD looks down from
heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the
inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.”