Every year I choose a word to focus on (see previous post) and this year my word was "Good" - the problem is, so far this year has been anything BUT good. I'd make a joke about this year being worse than all the Sharknado movies and the Tremor movies put together, but it's just not funny. Even with the things we could make fun of, like staying inside with our families, there has been a realization that for many it was anything but fun or funny. And now this.
I won't write my opinion in all this - it doesn't matter. Instead, I'm going to try and look at how in the world any of this can work out for "good". I know it was my word for the year and yet I just don't get it. Sort of like the year my word was "hope" and by the end of the year, hope was all we had to hang on to. So...I'm going to look at finding "good."
The first verse that came to mind was that God works all things together for my good...wait. How does that verse go EXACTLY - not from memory? Thanks to google search, I can find the exact address - it's Romans 8:28.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. That's the King James Version. Okay - but I know a lot of people that love God that are hurting right now. And angry. And confused! Maybe I'll look at some different versions.
The Message version includes verses 26 and 27, (it never gives you just PART of what has been said!) Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." Well, that's a little different. "every detail in our lives of love for God" - now I'm more confused.
I found an article on the Billy Graham website, (full link here: Do all things work together... ) and this part really stood out to me: "The fifth thing is the purpose of the promise. It is about those who are called according to His purpose. What is His purpose? In Romans 8:28-29 we read, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
That’s the key. What is the good that all things are working together for? To make us like Jesus. To be conformed to the image of His Son. There is no higher good than to be like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Many times this promise has been trivialized. For example, someone may be driving down the road and a tire will blow out. The person may say, “Oh, well, the Bible says that ‘all things work together for good.'(1) Maybe there’s a sale on tires.” That isn’t what this verse means. The good is not to make us necessarily healthy or happy but to make us holy, to make us like Jesus. If the goal of our lives is not to be like Jesus, that goal is too small. Our goal must be to be conformed to the image of God’s Son."
I once read that since I KNOW God works all things together for my good, if it isn't good then God isn't finished yet. Kind of simplistic, but it does help me hang on. Through all this, I keep asking myself how would Jesus respond? What would He do? If I can align with that, then perhaps I will become more like Him and that will be "good."
It seems that NOTHING has been good this year, and with each day instead of better it only seems to be getting worse. All that makes me wonder - what will God do to turn all this into something that we can somehow look back on and say, "it is good"? If nothing else, 2020 is driving us to our knees in prayer and helping us clearly SEE just how much we need the Lord and revival in the hearts of people everywhere...beginning with me.
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