How God Works All Things for Good

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| More Than Conquerors series |

• How God Works All Things for Good
• What Keeps Us from Overcoming Adversity
• How to Overcome Adversity

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Hardship Can Produce Harm

In Why We Suffer, we talked a lot about the good that hardship can produce in us. Indeed, this truth was evident in each of the stories we looked at in that series. However, when we look around us, the stories we hear don’t always have that same conclusion. In fact, more often than not we see the opposite. It often seems that hardship causes harm rather than good. Whether it’s poverty, abuse, or disability, these adversities seem to correlate with more challenges and negative outcomes later in life.

And yet, there are inspiring stories of individuals who have overcome adversity. In our series on His Love in Suffering, we saw several stories like this where God produced immeasurable good for people out of the hardship that they faced. Are these just random examples or is there something we can learn to overcome the adversity and trauma that we have faced in our own life. In that series we saw the good that suffering can produce in us and for us. What can we do to receive that benefit, to receive that good and overcome the adversity?

Before we answer that question, let’s start with something more foundational. What is good? More specifically, what is the good that God desires for us? What does it look like?

Defining Good

When God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, they often didn’t feel like He was working good for them. When they got to the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s army began to approach, and they were very afraid. They complained to Moses (it almost sounds like they’re heckling him):

“Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

Exodus 14:11-12

Why did God take them to the Red Sea? He knew Pharaoh’s army would come. Why take His people to such an impassable obstacle? He did it so He could make His power known to them, because of the faith it would build in them. After He parted the Red Sea and they went through, it says this:

Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

Exodus 14:31

This display of His power not only built their faith, but also their confidence in relying on Him. They knew their God was stronger than their enemies; they knew that their enemies would be filled with fear.

Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

Exodus 15:15-16

Just like the Israelites, God doesn’t lead us down the easy road but sometimes brings us to face impassable obstacles so that He can demonstrate His power and build our faith. He instills courage so that we confidently rely on Him when it feels that there is no way out.

So, we know the kind of good that God is working to produce in us out of hardship, a good that has eternal value. But, like we said in the beginning, hardship does not always produce this good. Let’s talk about why that is and what we can do to receive the good that God has for us in adversity.

God’s Promise

We have confidence that our own suffering can produce good in our lives. This confidence comes with the most certain of all guarantees – God’s guarantee. God has promised that He works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). But, if we have this promise, then why does it seem that this isn’t always the case? Why do we see so many people harmed by the hardship they’ve endured?

When we take a closer look at His promise, we find that it’s not given to everyone. Romans 8:28 says, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God”. In other words, this promise has a condition. In order to receive the promise, we must love God. At first glance, that sounds a little harsh. It almost sounds as if God is unwilling to work things for our good if we don’t love Him. However, we know God desires good for us even when we don’t love Him. The cross demonstrates just how far He will go for us even when we do not love Him:

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Accessing God’s Promise

So, why is this promise given only to “those who love God”? Hebrews 12:11 illuminates the answer by explaining the way that God produces good for us through hardship:

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 12:11 (emphasis added)

Like we said in Why We Suffer, that word ‘discipline’ can partly be understood as describing how God works good for us in adversity by training us in it. So, if we don’t receive God’s instruction and training when we face hardship, then we are unable to receive the good that pain can produce. If we do not love God then we will not receive His training. In other words, if we are not among “those who love God” in Romans then we are not able to be among “those who have been trained” in Hebrews.

This promise to work suffering for our good is given “to those who love God”. However, this is not because He is unwilling to work for our good when we don’t love Him. Instead, it’s because we are unable to receive that good unless we love Him.

In the next post I want to make this very applicable and practical for us. Let’s get specific on what things prevent us from receiving the good that God has for us in suffering. What keeps us from overcoming adversity? Be sure to subscribe, you won’t want to miss it!