All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
A few weeks ago I posted a meme on my Facebook page that asked the question: “What if… everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for?”
I borrowed it from someone else because I understood the deeper meaning. However, one of my followers asked me to explain what I meant by, “what if…” I believe in giving a full answer and making sure that if asked, I can give the reason for why I believe what I believe, (see 1 Peter 3:15). My answer was long, and while writing it I realized that other people may have this same questions so I decided to answer it on my blog.
At times it may be hard to believe that all things are working for our good but God wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.
Here’s my answer to that dear sister. I hope it helped her and I hope it helps you too:
Sometimes we look at what we are going through and ask why? It seems many times that the things we experience are contrary to God’s plans and the things He promised us. However, Romans 8:28 clearly tells us that all things, even the things that are seemingly contrary to God’s plan are working together (that is in cooperation with) for our good.
In Jeremiah 29:11, God said His plans and thoughts were good toward Israel. Most times when people quote this verse they forget that the children of Israel had just been removed from their land and exiled into slavery for their own sins. But God still had a plan to bring them to an expected end. What happened to them and their time in exile was part of His plan.
Joseph was given a God-size dream but when he told his brothers they sold him into slavery because they felt he was bragging and he was already his dad’s favorite. When he got to Egypt he worked for Potiphar – a powerful man in Pharaoh’s government until Potiphar’s wife tried to sleep Joseph and Joseph denied her. He then ended up in jail because of her lies after he told her no.
He’d done nothing wrong yet he was sentenced to life in prison. Joseph was a model inmate while in prison. He helped the top guard run the prison and interpreted the dreams of two top servants in Pharaoh’s household. The one who lived and returned to power was supposed to put in a good word for him but he didn’t. He forgot Joseph. But Joseph kept serving with integrity and using his gifts to for the good of the people in his sphere. It wasn’t until years later when Pharaoh’s men couldn’t interpret his dream that the chief baker mentioned Joseph. Joseph finally came to power as second in command under the most powerful man in the world as God had spoken when he was 17. Joseph was thirty years old by this time.
Joseph and his brothers saw each other again in Egypt when they went to buy grain during the famine. When they realized Joseph was alive and his dream had come to pass they were afraid he would have them killed.
But he saw the bigger picture once he came into the promise, that everything he’d gone through was to bring him into the dream God showed him that He’d said yes too.
He was able to forgive them and say,
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. Genesis 50:20.
Here’s the thing, whether we bring things on ourselves like the children of Israel or other people do us harm, if we love God and are part of the called according to His purposes He will make all things work for our good, even the things that seem contrary to His plan.
It’s His promise. He wants us to see the bigger picture and believe that He is working all things for our good.
This is why Romans 8:28-39 was written,
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Beloved, whether you believe it or not,
In your darkest hour, when things look hopeless and you are down to nothing – no answers and no explanation for what’s going on in your life, when you’ve been treated unfairly or you’ve lived recklessly and the consequences for your actions have finally caught up with you, know that all things are working together for your good if you love God and you’ve been called by Him for His purposes. In all things you are more than a conqueror through Him that loved you and gave His Son for you.
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