In Uncertainty, Go with Who You Know
Below is a conversation that took place when our two daughters were little and there was a tornado warning that required we all go to the basement:
Laynie (our oldest): “Are we going to be alright?”
Me: “We’re in the basement so we can be safe.”
Laynie: “Is our house going to get hit by a tornado?”
Me: “I don’t think so.”
Annie (our youngest): “Do you promise?”
Hmm. Annie thought her daddy had the ability to keep a tornado from hitting our home. I was tempted to assure her that it wouldn’t because it never has, but of course I couldn’t make that promise. It forced me to do what I should have done immediately namely, turn their focus from me to the Lord. So, I said, “The Lord is with us, so we don’t have to be afraid.”
What We Don’t Know
The coronavirus pandemic has caused all of us to seek answers that will assuage our fears, so we’re looking to medical professionals, government officials, community leaders, news organizations, family and friends, pastors, etc. While we should listen to those with expertise, submit to those in authority, and seek guidance from those who love us, the truth is this: None of them, and none of us, knows what happens next. We don’t know who will get sick, who will recover, how long the spread will last, what impact it will have on the economy, how it will shape the future, and a host of other unknowns. But God does. And while the Lord does not tell us what happens in any particular circumstance, He does tell us what He’s doing in every circumstance.
What We Do Know
In Romans 8 we’re given two things we always know:
1) We know that the whole creation groans and suffers … (v. 22). It is an evidence of God’s mercy that we are surprised by suffering. When you think about it, given that we live in a fallen world, which is a consequence of sin, then hard times, pain, difficult problems, and even pandemics should and would be the norm rather than the exception were it not for God’s goodness to His creatures. The fact that these things are exceptional and surprising is testimony to God’s mercy.
2) We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (v. 28). Many of us memorized this verse as “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (KJV). But there is a vast difference between saying “God works” and “things work.” You see, things don’t work by themselves. Rather, it is God Who is at work in everything that happens. To fully appreciate this precious promise, we need to understand that it teaches that …
God’s Work is in All Things
Verse 35 describes some of the ‘things’ in which God is at work: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword [death] … in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ‘More than conquerors’ means God’s people “do not merely endure and survive these things, rather, we … come out of troubles stronger than when they first threatened us.”1 And, we are ‘more than conquerors’ because “our ultimate reward will far surpass whatever earthly and temporal loss we may suffer. We should view even the most terrible circumstance as but “momentary, light affliction” that produces “for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).2
God’s Work Produces the Ultimate Good
It’s not that the things are necessarily good in themselves – certainly the list in v. 35 (tribulation, distress … death) is not. Rather, it is good because God is accomplishing His good purpose for us, through those things. Every ‘thing’ that God allows into our lives is part of the process of fulfilling what He said in vv. 29-30: For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son … And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. God’s purpose is that we be like Christ, and every single one of His people will get there, without exception. The unbreakable chain from predestination to glorification includes every ‘thing’ that happens in between, all of which are designed to attain God’s good purpose of conforming us to the image of Christ.
God’s Work is for His People
This promise to work all things for good is for those ‘who love Him’ (v. 28) and those He ‘foreknew’ (a different word for ‘know’ than in vv. 22 and 28). In the Bible, to ‘know’ in an intimate sense is to love. God’s foreknowledge of His people means that He set His love on us in eternity past, and so predestined us to be like Christ. In turn, We love [Him] because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). God’s love for us began in eternity past, is ours in the present, and will last into eternity future, and therefore: I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38-39).
Go With Who You Know
We know that God is at work. We know that He is working for our good. We know that He will accomplish His good purpose in us, not despite our difficulties, but because of them. Go with what you know. But none of us knows what the next weeks and months hold for us, but of course our Father does. He has loved us with an everlasting love, and did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all, [so] how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things (8:32)? So, in uncertainty, go not only with what you know, but with Who you know.
Ken Brown is the pastor of Community Bible Church in Trenton, MI. We republish his article by permission.