And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ~Romans 8:28
Studying this verse has been so good. This is one of those verses that people drop in your lap during hard times as an attempt to offer God security. Usually when you are the one receiving the DROP you find the verse to be oddly irritating. It does offer hope but when you are in the depths of the battle it can really be hard to hold onto this truth….that God works ALL things together for good. Especially when your moments seem so full of despair and finality.
Lets be honest….how could God work abuse for good, or cancer for good, or ALS for good, or death for good, or divorce for good, or loosing everything for good, or any other kind of life struggle for good? How?
WORKED TOGETHER in this verse is the word sunergeo from sun = with, speaks of intimacy + ergon = work….this is the English word synergy. Meaning the potential ability to be more successful or productive as a result of a merger. CO-OPERATER. God is the co-operator in our lives. God merges with us and our sin and our fallen selves to increase our potential and to create a more-better result (can you say more better? I do. Better is good but more-better is, well, more better). God himself is the one working together the various ‘ALL THINGS’ in our lives to produce something greater than and completely different from, the sum of each thing acting separately. WORKING ALL THINGS TOGETHER.
It is really a divine recipe. It is our sin, our fallen nature, our failures and tragedies…mixed with a little divine….stirred together by the Creator and baked into a beautiful masterpiece! We can’t do this one on our own, no amount of cover-up or repurposing of our pain will make it work together. It takes the divine, the One and Only God, full of wisdom and grace to do the work. Partnered with us, a merger….we bring our brokenness and He does the work…..then out comes goodness.
and the goodness is so good sometimes you can barely stand in the glory of it……
…..goodness coming right up!