I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. (Romans 8:18-30)
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There's a well-known story about Chippie the parakeet. He was simply minding his own business and signing his song one day when his owner decided to clean out his cage with the vacuum cleaner. The phone rang and the lady went to answer it and that was when things began to go horribly wrong for little Chippie. With Chippie's owner gone, the vacuum cleaner sucked up the little bird and sent him to the dust bag. Realizing what had happened the woman tore open the vacuum and ripped apart the bag to find little Chippie, fearing the worst. But Chippie wasn't dead. He was just stunned and covered with dust. The woman decided that he needed to be revived and so she ran to the bathroom sink. She turned the water on and stuck Chippie under the flow. Now Chippie was cold and wet from the sudden bath. So the owner decided to dry the bird off - but not with a towel. She got out her hair dryer to blow-dry the poor feathered creature, put it on full blast and Chippie went a-tumblin'. In the course of just a few minutes, Chippie went from being sucked up, to being nearly drowned to being blown over. His owner was asked by a friend a few weeks later how Chippie was doing. She replied: “Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore, he just sits and stares.” I wonder why! But does it sound at all familiar? Life comes at us at a furious pace and a lot of it isn't good and we get blind-sided just like poor Chippie. One moment we don’t have a care in the world and the next we get sucked up by trials, problems and difficulties. And they take over. And they can blind us to the presence of goodness.
In a world full of bad things that happen – from the international stage to the every day lives of every day people like us – wouldn't it be nice to be able to believe that all these bad things somehow turn out in a good way? And yet, sometimes and in some situations that can sound rather trite and patronizing, can't it. If you go up to a person who's facing some type of difficult or challenge or hardship or burden and you say to them, “don't worry – it will all work out for the best,” don't you ever wonder how the person to whom the comment is directed feels? “Sure it will. Sure.” And yet, we have all sorts of ways of saying the same thing. “It will all work out for the best.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “If life hands you a lemon, turn it into lemonade.” And, of course, there were the words Paul wrote: “... in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” “All things” must mean the bad things too. Gee, God, thanks. In a lot of ways all of those different kinds of advice that all say the same basic thing can be just a little bit irritating. Put yourself in the shoes of the one hearing it. “Yeah, buddy, but you don't know my problems.” In most cases – that's probably true enough, isn't it. But – I do know God; at least a little bit. And when I think about God, I start to be able to understand what's being said.
God is good. That's one of the things we trust and believe, isn't it? God is good. Always good. In every way. Psalm 100 says “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.” It is the goodness of God more than anything else that makes us thankful. It isn't what God does for us that makes us thankful. It isn't what God gives us that makes us thankful. It's who and what God is that makes us thankful. Good is good and God is love. And it's in that very nature of God that we begin to see the hopes that words like Paul's in Romans (and some of the other sometimes trite-sounding phrases that get bandied about) aren't trite-sounding at all. They're a reflection of reality; they're based on what we believe to be the very nature of God.
God is good. And God's goodness is enough to overcome whatever “bad” may come into our lives. That doesn't mean, of course, that God takes away our troubles and our problems and our challenges. Some people face these hardships in life, and they start to question God, because they think faith should be a magic wand, driving all troubles away. But it isn't so. But it also doesn't mean that God causes them. Some people seem to have a very fatalistic view of God. Bad things are explained away as “it was God's will” - as if that makes everything better, when all it really does is paint a picture of God as a cruel monster, who deliberately causes His people to suffer. But if God neither causes our problems, nor takes them away, then we have to find the middle choice – God uses those problems to bring us to a deeper understanding.
One of the main problems we face is that the bad things that happen can blind us to the goodness around us. They can blind us even to the goodness of God. Perhaps that's why Hebrews calls us so emphatically to “keep [our] eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” - because if we let our eyes slip away and begin to focus on that which isn't good, then we also lose sight of God. One of our problems, I suspect, is that we equate “goodness” with “good” things happening. If bad things happen, good gets drowned out, and so does the idea of a good God. But perhaps that misses the point. C.S. Lewis, in a book called The Problem Of Pain, wrote that “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” It is the very presence of our pains that inspires God's people to their greatest works of goodness – works of goodness that reflect the good God who inspires and guides us.
Some say that one thing can only be understood and appreciated in relation to its opposite. If there is no “hot,” then we can't really understand the concept of “cold.” In the same way, if there is no “bad,” then we can't really understand the concept of “good.” It's the bad things that happen – the troubling, challenging, hurtful things - that turn our attention to the need for good. It's those very trials and hardships faced by us and by so many all over the world that serve to propel us to becoming God's own agents in trying to hold out a vision of hope. You see, to me the goodness of God isn't displayed in simply God doing good things and magically making all the bad stuff disappear. The goodness of God is displayed in the hope we have that things can be better, that challenges can be overcome, that problems do not have to defeat us. The goodness of God is displayed in the hope Paul spoke of in Romans: “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
When Paul writes that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him ...” he isn't saying that God is causing or even using the bad things that happen as a part of some sadistic divine plan. He's saying that the goodness of God will eventually triumph over the bad things that happen. He's saying that hope exists – even when things seem to be at their most hopeless.
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