Chances are, if you grew up in the church, this was one of the verses that you memorized back in Sunday School.
It's possible, likely, that you have had someone quote this verse to you when you have gone through a difficult time, or been waiting for something. It's one that tends to get quoted along with Psalm 37:4 ("Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart") and Jeremiah 29:11 ("For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.")
I was walking with a friend this week, who asked how things were going, and I replied "I'm really learning that God actually works all things for my good, that he is for me and that he graciously gives me all things, and so it's been going really well lately."
And he said, "you've got to be careful with that. God doesn't really work all things for good like you expect."
Now before delving into an argument about the inerrancy of Scripture and calling him a heretic, I explained further what I believed Romans 8:28 was referring to, and it turned out we were on the exact same page.
At our core, we all have a story about how we see our lives shaping out. For many of us who are single, for example, that story is so often oriented around the path to marriage. Since this blog is focused on singleness, I'll follow that thread throughout the rest of this post, but we can also have stories rooted around our educational achievements, our career successes, our financial stability, our children's success, the growth of our ministries, and on and on.
With a story focused on the path to the altar, when we read that God works all things together for God, we intuitively read it as "well, if that door was closed because guy/girl #1 was not interested in me, it's because God has someone even better lined up for me." You probably even have examples where you've seen this happen.
This is not what Paul meant when he wrote that, and it's not what God promises in all of the verses I mentioned above. Whatever narrative we may have in our lives that leads us to expect specific outcomes from God is not our true story. (And I already blogged about that!)
Here's what we often think about that:
I would submit to you, though, that what God is really promising here is infinitely better.
Here's the thing about our stories: they end, they cause us to live in worry whether things are going well or not going as we hope, and they never live up to their promises (even if we achieve them).
They end...
The stories that are rooted in things here on earth will come to an end one way or another. If the story is about the dream wedding, either we will die without it happening, or we will have it and then it will be over. We can achieve career success, but then we retire.
They cause us to live in worry...
Have you ever gotten That Thing and lost it? Probably. We've all been through that unless we've lived an incredibly charmed life. When our story is oriented around That Thing, we worry that we won't find it. When we have it, we worry that we're going to lose it. We worry that God doesn't really understand what we need or how we would like the story to shape up. Living in worry is not a good way to live.
They never live up to their promises...
Tim Keller has a really great sermon about the story of Jacob and Leah. To provide a quick synopsis: Jacob sees Rachel (Leah's younger sister) and falls uncontrollably in love with her. He agrees to work seven years to get Rachel as his wife, and after those seven years pass, Jacob gets his bride... But "in the morning, behold, it was Leah!" (Gen. 29:25) The reality is that all things are really "Leah" in the morning. CS Lewis describes this well in Mere Christianity.
"Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us."
God has a much better story on offer for us.
His story never ends.
God has sent his Son to redeem us so we can have a relationship with him for eternity. Our purpose in life is to glorify him and we will do that throughout eternity.
He promises we have nothing to worry about.
When we choose to believe what God says about us and has for us, we can rest in his promises. God's work in our story is to shape us into his likeness so we can bring glory to him. It rests in the saving work Christ accomplished for us on the cross and does not depend on us. I do not need to stress about how or whether God is going to use me because it does not depend on me.
What he promises is better than we can imagine.
In Ephesians 3:20, Paul talks about how God "is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine" (NIV). We focus our lives on what we can see or imagine here, focusing on the best of what we can see on earth. God promises so much more.
If you don't quite buy this, but are intrigued, Tim Keller also has a great sermon on Romans 8:28-30.
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