Romans 8:18-30 (The Message and TNIV)
There is much more in these verses than I want to cover in a blog post. Three main topics make up these ten verses: environmentalism (v19-21), suffering (v22-28) and election (v29-30). Due to space here, I want to look specifically into the middle section and our response to suffering. I may hit another one later today, though.
I think we have to back up to the beginning verse of the section to get the umbrella thought Paul lays over his explanation. I personally like the TNIV better here, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” It’s easy to get caught viewing the grand story God is writing from a lower perspective. One that sees life from the underside - the sickness, the sadness and the suffering. We can be confident that no matter what we are going through now, it pales in comparison to what is coming. What an incredible testament to hope.
Verse 28 may be one of the most often quoted and misused verses in all of the bible. If I read it in the TNIV (“We know that in all things God works for the good...”), I have a bit of twitch. That is the quote that gets thrown out when someone we love has just been diagnosed with cancer, been in a car accident, lost a child or some other instance that a Christian cannot explain. It feels like a platitude that distances us from the suffering of others and offers an insufficient excuse for bad things happening.
Because of this, I’d much rather read from The Message. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our eager condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that in every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good (27-28). What an amazing hope. We don’t have to sugar coat the bad things that happen in our lives. When bad things happen, we can confess that life sometimes sucks and we don’t always have an answer. We can sit with a friend and mourn with them and let them bear their grief. In the end, we know that God can take a terrible situation and manipulate it for good in the life of someone who has trusted their life to him. He always works “every detail” into something good, but we sometimes have to wait to see it.
Is my assessment of verse 28 fair? Have you found comfort in this verse in times of suffering personally? Maybe you have offered this verse to someone else in their suffering. What was their response? If a person does not have a “love for God,” do you think God is not working the details of their life into something good?
Feel free to focus on another of the sections in this passage. Maybe God wants you to wrestle and engage with something different today.
I think the tendency is to make everything about us: whether is is our suffering or our good. These verses indicate that the whole of creation groans. Who groans but the one who is suffering? The whole of creation is suffering under the curse of sin and death. There is a larger story going on here, of which we are but a part.
ReplyDeleteOur hope isn't just about this life, but the life to come when the full redemptive work of the cross and resurrection of Jesus takes place and all of creation is redeemed and set free from the curse of sin and death.
Bad things do happen and no one wants them to occur or experience them. Yet our hope is built on the premise that God is causing all things to work together for our good. That in spite of the opposition we face from a very real evil, a very real God is working to a bring about redemption, healing, and freedom to all of creation, which includes you and I.
But there are still battles to be fought, and battles mean casualties, until the war is completed. In the midst of the battle it is hard, being surrounded by suffering, or suffering yourself. Yet we look forward to the hope that our Captain, our King, our Lord, our God leads us forward, and will change all that, and we will celebrate at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Can you imagine the stories that will be told then? Things that you wondered about, knowing only a part, finally being made clear? The celebration of life as we were meant to live.
Great words Pete.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read anything by John Eldredge? I think you would really like him. ;-)