Day 4 - Week 34 - Romans 8:28 "We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God; those who are called according to His purpose."

Everything that happens to you is for your own good.  If the waves roll against you, it only speeds your ship toward the port.  If lightning and thunder come, the rain clears the atmosphere and promotes your soul's health.  You gain by loss, you grow healthy in sickness, you live by dying, and you are made rich in losses.

Could you ask for a better promise?  It is better that all things should work for my good than all things should be as I would wish to have them.  All things might work for my pleasure and yet might all work my ruin.  If all things do not always please me, they will always benefit me.

This is the best promise of life. ---- Charles H. Spurgeon, on Romans 8:28

As immature Christians, we often think that God has promised to give whatever we ask of Him.  If that were the case, He would not be sovereign God---we would be gods dictating to Him what it is He is going to do for us. 

But that is not the case.  God, in His absolute sovereignty, determines the best for His children...the ultimate and absolute best.  It is not always the quickest answer to our problem, but it is always the best.  It certainly isn't always the answer that we have requested...but you can be assured, if it is not that answer, it is never less...it will always better.

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD."  Isaiah 55:8

As we mature in our faith, we come to realize that God's wisdom really is beyond our comprehension...we cannot always understand His answers.  But we can understand that every response from Him is driven by His love and His knowledge of not only our immediate needs, but our eternal needs. 

Now you try to figure out answers that can meet that qualification!  Isn't it wiser to put our trust into the One who has absolute, beginning to end, knowledge?  We have a great promise...we have a great God!