Is God in control?

I heard one of the late night preachers on TV the other day. You know the ones. "You gotta sow a seed!!! God says we reap what we sow! If you sow a seed of $500 to my ministry, God's gonna give you 1,000 fold." Looking at it from that viewpoint, considering there's 4 or 5 a night preach this same message with different arbitrary seed amounts, if I sowed all they asked I'd have 10 times what Bill Gates has.

Anyway, this guy ranted about how people say God's in control. He said if God's in control, why do we have prisons, why are kids abused, etc.

Then I read something earlier. This article said we need to remember God's in control. If He decides not to step in and stop something then He has a reason for it that we may never understand but we have to trust that He has a purpose. This writer used Joseph as an example. Joseph was mistreated and sold into slavery, lied about and thrown in prison where he was forgotten about and remained there a couple more years. But God had a purpose for it.

That article has helped me to understand what it means to say God's in control. And I didn't have to send the writer one red cent for his insight.