Daily Devotional

This verse is often quoted and I think many times misunderstood. This verse does provide comfort and confidence to we who follow and love God, but I think it often can be misinterpreted to mean that only good things will happen to us. You see God didn’t promise us an easy time as christians in this life, in fact just the opposite. We are told that just as the world hated Jesus, so it will hate us too. We are told that to suffer for Christ in this life is gain. In Romans 5:3-4 we read “...but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

This verse therefore needs to be taken from a big picture perspective, rather than a personal perspective. God is working all things ultimately for good, even through the seemingly bad things that can happen to us individually. Death often is a focusing agent for people who may not know God. And often we hear that the death of a loved one is often the catalyst that led someone to ultimately accept Christ as their Savior. So one's loss and suffering is used to call another to Jesus. We don’t know how God is using our circumstances for His purpose and Glory.
 
You see God is not reacting to our situations and then trying to work out how to make good out of that, no, He is all knowing and has planned and orchestrated it from the beginning. The cross was not plan B for humanity, it was always plan A. God didn’t see Adam and Eve fall and think, “oh great now what?” From the beginning of time it was always God’s plan to redeem humanity through the greatest sacrifice in history. And we would do well to remember in our own suffering, that God came down in the form of man and suffered as part of His ultimate good for us. And if God can suffer for us for good, we should be willing to suffer for Him for good as well.

So remember in your hard times, especially when nothing seems to make sense, God is working all things together for good, even in ways you cannot, and may never see. Remember to praise Him for His goodness, not only in the good times, but in the hard, and difficult times as well.

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.