Recently Romans 8:28 keeps appearing to me in various places; “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
A couple of days ago I finally had an epiphany about the tragic loss of my buddy Joe as I thought “God can do whatever he wanted to do with Joe because he is God.” I am not saying God caused Joe to do what he did, but God certainly could have intervened and he chose not to. And if I go back to Romans 8:28 I must believe (if I really do love God) that God allowed this tragedy to take place in order to work together for good. I must say that my faith has allowed me to see the good in this tragedy and I’ve seen some pretty amazing good so far.
As humans it is so easy to get hung up on death because all we know is life. We have no clue what eternal life is so we cling to our earthly life. That is why it is so important to flex our faith muscles daily through prayer, scripture reading and meditation. Today’s morning reading brought me to more words from Paul; 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
Hmmm…to view the death of a best friend as a “slight momentary affliction” takes a whole lot of faith. I’m not there yet but I’m certainly headed in the right direction. How about you? Are you dealing with life circumstances as momentary afflictions or as permenant and pervasive tragedies?
What is so ironic (even though nothing in God’s world is ironic) is that Joe and his wife had a stone that laid next to their front door with Romans 8:28 engraved on it…
God is God and there ain’t nothing we can do about it…other than let him be God.
P.E.A.C.E.
