When a major trial hits you or you experience intense suffering have you ever questioned God about why are these things happening to me? I think we all have. I know I have. When I went through a severe bout of clinical depression in 2004 and 2005 I often asked God why was this happening to me. While God, at the time of my depression, didn’t reveal any definite answers, one verse that gave me comfort and hope was (Romans 8:28). Perhaps of all the verses in the Bible, this one verse is the key to providing us with comfort and carrying us through the trials of life we all experience. It reads: “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.”
You see we have a very limited time frame and have a hard time seeing the future. However, God sees the big picture and has a master plan for good – both ours and His. Loving God means that we trust His goodness, His power, and His ability to work out all things for our good. The key is to understand that all things, by themselves, are not always good, (clearly some things are bad) but God is able to work them together for good.
When we trust God we basically are telling Him that we know His plans are always good. This can give us the confidence we need that, no matter the circumstances or environments, we can know that God will work out His good plans according to His perfect design. As a result, comfort and contentment can be ours, as we expectantly await God to work out His plan for His glory and our good. Trusting God also means that we believe that He knows, better than we do, what is best for us in the long run.
The story of Joseph in the Old Testament (see my devotion dated May 19, 2022 called Joseph – From Slave To Prime Minister) illustrates this principle of God working all things together for good extremely well.
According to the website Got Questions: “Throughout his life, Joseph trusted God no matter his good or bad circumstances. Joseph experienced plenty of bad things: kidnapping, slavery, false accusations, wrongful imprisonment, rejection, and famine. But in the end God brought things to a wonderful, life-affirming conclusion. God blessed Joseph’s entire family through those painful circumstances and through Joseph’s faith.”1
At the time, when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, he probably wondered what good could come out of this. However, (Genesis 50:20) tells us how in God’s sovereignty He was able to bring good out of evil for we read: “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”
In the case of my depression, I have now been depression free for fifteen years. And praise God, He has used my battle with depression to help me minister, over the years, to many individuals with this condition as a counselor at the Bowery Mission, a mission for homeless people in New York City, as well as to others I have encountered with depression over the years.
And the greatest example of God bringing good out of evil can be found in the New Testament account of the death of Jesus. We may not always understand the why behind evil and suffering but we can be confident that God will work it for good. If God could take the absolute worst thing in history, Christ’s death on the cross, and turn it into the best thing ever – our chance for reconciliation with God and eternal life, then don’t you think He can take our lesser trials and sufferings and turn them into something good? My friends God loves us too much to not bring about blessings from our trials. So, the next time we get hit with adversity let’s just trust in Jesus – He will never let us down and will work out all things for His glory and our ultimate good!
1 What does it mean that all things work together for good? | GotQuestions.org
The following are two considerations by Spurgeon about depression:
1. “I note that some whom I greatly love and esteem, who are, in my judgment, among the very choicest of God’s people, nevertheless, travel most of the way to heaven by night.”
Spurgeon on depression
2. “No sin is necessarily connected with sorrow of heart, for Jesus Christ our Lord once said, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.’ There was no sin in Him, and consequently none in His deep depression.” Spurgeon