Here is some fantastic insight from Luther on how God governs the lowly.
Furthermore, God’s presence in this most humble kind of life should be recognized. Like the other kinds of life, it is full of vexations and troubles. For God rules and protects the saints even in menial matters, so that people whose lot is lowest do not despair and those who have been placed in the highest station do not become proud. For God governs the world in such a way that He casts down what is high and raises what is low. He confounds the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent (cf. Isaiah 44:25; 1 Corinthians 1:19). These changes are made by God.
The church has been subjected to servitude in the world. Indeed, it has been given up to death, as Paul says (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:11). Yet if the world were without the church, kings and princes with all their power would perish. For it is completely subject, and it rules and bears the world. For the godly sustain the world. Nevertheless, they are servants, as is stated in the Greek verse: “The master is the only slave of a house.” The father of the household is the only servant in the house. The mother of the household is the only maidservant. The only subject in the state is the magistrate. The others, who seem to be servants, enjoy the advantages, the peace, and the tranquility of the state, the realm, and all empires. He who rules is a servant of servants.
God regulates the world in such a way that all things—those that are highest, those in the middle, and those that are lowest—serve Him. The highest things are the lowest, and the lowest are the highest. Therefore Duke Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, stated wisely and brilliantly to Staupitz that when he made a mental survey of the whole world and all ranks of men, it seemed to him that the peasants, who occupied the lowest place in the state, were the happiest, because they alone enjoy peace and true tranquility and are not tormented by the cares and dangers of the state. In summer they cultivate their fields; in winter they sit by the fire and enjoy their possessions. Although they lack royal magnificence, they nevertheless enjoy the greatest blessings, namely, tranquility and ease, and live more safely and happily within their own enclosure than kings and princes within their citadels or fortifications.
This is God’s wonderful governance or changing of things. For the things that seem to be lowest and most wretched are the greatest and most prosperous. Nothing in the world is more wretched than the church. Hence arise those complaints of the church: “Why hast Thou turned Thy face away? Why dost Thou forget me? I preach, I confess, I do and endure everything that God enjoins; but no one is more afflicted and forsaken than I am.” But then the Lord replies: “I do not forget you,” as is stated most sweetly in Isaiah 49:14–15: “But Zion said: ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the sons of her womb? Even these may forget, yet will I not forget you.”
But God’s care and concern for us does not appear to be so great. Therefore one must learn, and accustom oneself to, that changing and alteration of things and men in the world. The heathen have learned in one way or another by experience that a servant is the master in the house and that the master is a servant. Indeed, the monks made the same complaint about their servants. For they had brothers whom they called lay brothers. To them the kitchen and domestic works were entrusted. But these also ruled over the others, so that the proverb “The master has turned” came into use from the words of the Gospel (Luke 22:61): “The Lord turned and looked, etc.” By this they meant to say: “The one who turned is our Lord who rules us.”
Thus in our management of household affairs the maidservants rule their mistresses, and the children rule the whole house and the domestics who serve them. By means of examples of this kind God teaches that He is present and cares for us, that He does not forget us, no matter in what kind of life we live.
The church is the queen in the world; but nothing is less apparent, since the world reigns and exercises dominion. But if the church did not sustain the world by its praying and teaching, all things would perish in one moment. The world does not see or believe this. Indeed, the Turk and the Frenchman think that they rule and sustain the world, that is, until they fall into ruin and are confounded in their counsels and endeavors. Then they will finally find out that they are nothing. But it will be too late.
(Luther’s Works 5:341-343)
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RE: “But if the church did not sustain the world by its praying and teaching, all things would perish in one moment.”
My Bible says, rather, that it is the Son of God who “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), “and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17).