“All things work together for good…”
“All things work together for good to them that love God.” - Romans 8:28.
It’s a source of comfort and hope to countless people. It’s one of the most quoted, most loved, verses in the Bible. And it’s also one of the most misunderstood.
Because it’s not about wish fulfillment. It’s not about making poor choices, or sabotaging yourself, and then imagining that somehow it will all turn out great.
It’s not the magic missing piece from the world’s worst business plan.
(Phase One: do the thing. Phase Two: ???? Phase Three: profit!!!)
It’s not about pretending that if you’re a good person only good things will happen to you. Bad stuff is going to happen to you and me – that’s life in the fallen world we live in.
If that’s not it, then what is it about?
First, there’s more to it - “All things work together for good to them that love God, who are called according to His purpose.”
And it means that there is a calling from God, an invitation. As St. John Chrysostom tells us, “The calling was not forced on anyone, nor was it compulsory. Everyone was called, but not everyone responded to the call.”
It means that when you and I respond to God’s call, when we turn towards God? When we have a relationship with God, when we try to follow God’s lead?
God will go to work in our lives, to help us become who He made us to be. Because that’s the “good” that St. Paul is talking about, the good that God made us for.
God will use every part of our lives, the good stuff and the bad stuff. The times we did our best and the times we didn’t. The stuff we brought on ourselves and the stuff that just happened to us.
Sometimes those things hit us hard. And when it does, it can feel like the way it hurts will never end.
The key to all of this, to having God use it for our good – no matter what it is – is to do it with God.
To get over ourselves. To get over having to do it all by ourselves. To invite God into the very heart of what we’re dealing with.
To ask God to do it with us. To ask God to use it for our good.
Even if we don’t see how any good could ever come out of it.
God will use every part of our lives for good – the good of becoming who He made us to be – if we’ll let Him.