For Our Good

Paul writes: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:28–29).

Life is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” wrote William Shakespeare in Macbeth. God, however, says that every circumstance has purpose. All things are working together for good.

Of course, not everything that comes our way is good. There is nothing good about cancer, aging, or permanent disability. Life is often hard, but God inspires the harshest events, transforming them into advantage, exploiting them for good. The hard occurrences crack our facades and reveal the neediness inside. They loosen our grip on the outside world as we see that its goodness is but an illusion, and then they draw our hearts inward to God’s love. They center us on Him and conform us to His gracious will, for we have entered into this world for this purpose: “I have come to do your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:7). God uses every difficulty and complication to draw us to Himself and to conform us to His will. When it comes to that “good,” any old circumstance will do.

When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When he yearns with all his heart
To create a being so bold
That all the world will be amazed,
watch his methods, watch his ways!
How he relentlessly perfects
Whom he royally elects!
How we’re hammered and hurt
And with mighty blows converted
Into trial shapes of clay
Which only God understands;
While our tortured heart is crying
And we lift beseeching hands!
How God bends, but never breaks
When his good he undertakes;
How he uses whom he chooses
And with every purpose fuses us;
By every act induces us
To try his splendor out—
God knows what he’s about!
~Dale Martin Stone

The severity of God is kinder than the kindness of man. As David put it, “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men” (2 Samuel 24:14). There is a love deeper than the love of those who seek only ease for those they love.

The nearness of God is our good . . .
One of David’s fellow poets struggled valiantly with the goodness of God. “God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart,” said Asaph rather lamely (Psalm 73:1). But the truth did not ring true. There was too much wrong with his world. He struggled intensely with his own pain and that of his neighbors. He couldn’t understand why those who were pure in heart should have to suffer at all.

He was about to lose his grip on God: “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (73:2–3).

The “arrogant” are those who make no room in their lives for God. They give themselves all the credit; they never say thanks! They have a mindset like Toad Tarkington, one of writer Stephen Coonts’s characters, who boasts, “Humble is for those who can’t. I can.”

The poet Asaph warmed to his task:

They [the arrogant] have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.
They are free from the burdens common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.

Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
From their callous hearts comes iniquity;
the evil conceits of their minds know
no limits.

They scoff, and speak with malice;
in their arrogance they threaten
oppression.

Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of
the earth.

Therefore their [Hebrew: “his,” i.e., God’s]
people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance.

They say, “How can God know?
Does the Most High have knowledge?”
[Does He know or care?]

This is what the wicked are like—
always carefree, they increase in wealth.
~Psalm 73:4–12

The phrase “They have no struggles” might be translated “There are no pains in their death”—they die peacefully and painlessly. In contrast to the psalmist, who is plagued all day long (73:14), they are not plagued by human ills. They wear their pride boldly. Others observe their prosperity and “drink up waters in abundance.” Using our idiom, they “drink it in,” and it prejudices them against God.

Yet God, as the psalmist observed, continues to put up with human arrogance. He not only endures pride, He continues to provide the proud with good. “The rain rains on the just and on the unjust, but chiefly it rains on the just because the unjust steals his umbrella,” laments an old adage.

The psalmist was dismayed: “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence,” he lamented. “All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning” (73:13–14).

The poet faced the full rigor of the problem: There’s no payoff for knowing God. Why bother?

But then came a moment of truth: Asaph went into the place of revelation to hear what God had to say. There God disclosed an unknown or forgotten fact: This isn’t all there is. There is more to life than the here and now. “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny [Hebrew: their after]” (Psalm 73:16–17). To use the poet’s precise word, there is something after.

Although Asaph had little earthly good, he had God—forever! “I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory” (73:23–24).

This is the answer to all of Satan’s lies: We may not have the good life—struggle, pain, disappointment, vexation, opposition, and loss may be our lot—but we have God, and God Himself is our good. “Happiness is neither outside nor inside us,” Pascal said, “it is in God, both outside and inside us. . . . Our only true blessing is to be in him, and our sole ill to be cut off from him.”

Life’s disappointments show us how empty life is. Then, when the world’s attractiveness begins to fade, we begin to move toward God as our good. As we come to Him again and again—listening to His Word, meditating on His thoughts, following Him in obedience, tasting of His goodness—He makes Himself increasingly known. We enter into intimacy with Him and come to love Him for Himself.

“The most fundamental need, duty, honor, and happiness of men is . . . adoration,” said Friedrich von Hügel. In adoration we enjoy God for Himself. We long for the Giver rather than for His gifts. We ask nothing more than to be near Him and to be like Him. We want nothing but the hunger to give ourselves to Him. In adoration we learn why every other chase has left us breathless and restless, worn out and wanting for more.

And so, though it is hard to accept, we need nothing more than God’s presence. Our toys and lesser joys can never satisfy; they are small delights. God alone is the answer to our deepest longings.

Once more we’re confronted with unexpected simplicity: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” In this world or in the next, He is all we need.

So when I hear what God has to say I know the only thing left for me to do is to turn my energies toward Him, giving Him my full attention and my heart’s devotion, asking Him every day to bring me to the place where I find Him more interesting than anyone I know, anything I do, any place I go, or anything I possess. It’s a matter of centering myself on God. “Not consecration, but concentration,” as Oswald Chambers said. Beyond salvation, beyond sanctification, beyond glorification lies the greatest joy of all: the joy of knowing God! (see Romans 5:1–11). It’s what I was made for. If I do not know Him, my life is a failure.

Be thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
~Eleanor H. Hull, translator

Taken from Psalm 23: The Song of a Passionate Heart, ©1994 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.