Geoff writes:
“Don’t know what the probability is that you could solve a 5×5 Rubik cube by chance moves, but even when I used some carefully thought out moves I still couldn’t do it. My grandson did it in minutes! He knows that you have to make some very disruptive moves that at first make all the faces seem wrong before it all comes together. Finished!
Perhaps that’s a very simplified analogy for Rom.8:28, the famous “all things work together for good” verse. Certainly everything is not good; bad things happen too. Some people think “all things” in that verse means all things in my life, but it’s actually bigger than that and “all” is defined by the context of verses 18-39 (extract below). It is a truly universal statement: God’s plan for absolutely everything, stretching from eternity to eternity. And if God is God, no better plan could ever be devised.
Remember, you can’t complete the cube by just trying to make all of it right for one face. And in life we may go through very disruptive things without any possibility individually of seeing their positive outcome, the good that comes from this. If we lose grip with the bigger picture it is the road to greater disappointments. Present pain can only be considered reasonable if we have real hope in a God who is permitting it for a much, much, much bigger purpose. Not an easy concept at all. But the alternatives are hopeless.”
Check out Rom.8:18-27 then read on:
…And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified 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 gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.