All Things . . . For Good

Sunday’s class study was the final verses of Romans 8. They contain a couple of items that are a bit hard to understand. Let me begin with:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 KJV)

I have seen that used so often as a stand alone verse, but you and I both know there have been tragedies that appeared to refute that verse. Just this summer, within a week’s time, there were three toddlers in the news because they had wandered just a bit, found water enticing, and drowned. That is certainly a part of “all things.” We cannot see that they “work together for good”, even when we know their parents and extended family loved God.

Unfortunately for all of us, humans die. We’ve come to accept the death of a person who has lived a “lifetime”, but humans die. From conception through a hundred-plus years, humans die. From incurable diseases to tragic accidents, with and without another human’s help, humans die.

Religion is thought to have sprung up from a desire to live again. As a Christian, I point to the Bible as my own belief that it is not a human desire, but a God-conceived and verbally given hope that does survive along with faith and love. So, we read this verse in context with the full message Paul wrote to the Romans. No verse in the Bible is worthy to stand alone, though many appear to.

The verses above this one is necessary to put it to practice, to know that even in sorrow and pain, that God has a plan in place. The second part of the verse points to others, too. One of those above I have used just this morning – a sister requesting an unspoken prayer for her brother; a pastor requesting prayer for a tiny baby with a young mother who lost their father/husband.

What can we say in the presence of such pain, when it appears nothing worked for good? Paul gives us that, too:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27 KJV)

We needed it in 2011 when a lovely mother left a widower, three children and another baby when cancer took her life. Her husband taught us that hope went much further than human death when he wrote – and shared with us on this link – his pain and his faith.

Do you love God and have responded to His call to His purpose? That purpose is outlined in the single, most memorized, most used, verse in the Bible:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)

Accepting that God exists, loved His creation sufficiently to provide an eternal life, and we get to spend it with Him sounds too simple. But, it is the first step to learning so much more. None of it detrimental to our lives, all of it working together for good in God’s eternal plan. He promised. I believe He keeps promises:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,

Nor any form of earthly strife,

nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,

Nothing from hell’s own bowers,

nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor far away, nor here at home,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,

Nor false God or wrong teacher,

shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:38-39 KJV)

(and my own, poor, additions)