All Things Work Together for Good

Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

A long time ago, the importance of this concept was impressed on me in a way that I still have trouble describing.

Imagine that you have done the most terrible things you can imagine. Maybe you killed everyone you love in a fit of rage. Maybe you systematically destroyed your life and your relationships, one by one, as slowly and painfully as one can imagine.

The Almighty God will not just “fix” what you’ve done. He won’t make it as if it never happened. Humanity will never go back to a state of innocence, as we were in Eden.

God does not provide a magical “undo” button. What He offers is so much better than that…

Before I carry through to what He does offer, let me make the point that what God considers good is almost entirely outside of our experience. We now live in a fallen world, where sin and death are intrinsic to everything we experience. The taint of this world is inescapable.

What we see as “good” may just be mediocre or acceptable or unremarkable. What God sees as good is thoroughly, unreservedly good. Good in a way that we will never be able to experience in this world except through Christ.

What God provides is SO good that it has no downside, no regrets attached, no hint of evil.

God is in the business of perfecting us, not repairing us.

Those things in our lives that are evil or wrong–the things about ourselves that we know are offensive to a holy God–aren’t just going to be taken away from us or reversed. Instead, God has promised to work them into something Good.

That means He will take the things that are wrong and evil that we do or have done to us and turn them into something more beautiful and better than what could have been without them. No matter how ugly it may be, He has promised to use it to make something that He sees as good.

I cannot imagine a more substantive or meaningful reason for hope than that.

2 thoughts on “All Things Work Together for Good

  1. I would disagree, not with the whole point, but with one line.
    “God is in the business of perfecting us, not repairing us.”
    God is in the business of perfecting us, yes, but the Bible makes it clear that perfection comes either after death, in Heaven, or after His Second Coming, in the meantime God is known as “The Comforter” and “The Healer of Broken Hearts.” If that’s not God repairing us, I don’t know what is.
    You seem to have it right for the most part, but my biggest concern is that this makes God seem cold. He’s not. He’s right here with us and He wants us to feel loved and protected, despite our imperfections.

    • In this case, “repairing” was meant as “returning to a previous state” rather than healing.

      God does not return us to some form of innocence or put us back the way we were. Instead, He perfects us. In doing so, He heals us.

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