Do you really believe that in all things God works for the good of those who love him?
There are two themes here, as follows:
God’s plan. It is logical to believe that, if our lives are committed to the guidance and government of perfect love, then love, which is God (1 John 4:8), will desire our ultimate and perfect happiness. And if our lives are controlled by perfect wisdom, then God, who knows all things and makes no mistakes, can plan and perfect our happiness. The only limiting factor is our will. How completely can we or do we commit our lives to God who, in perfect love and perfect wisdom, can secure our ultimate happiness and usefulness? It also follows that any experience committed to God, whether it is pain or pleasure, good or evil, can be woven into the pattern for good. Nothing, even failure and sin, is exempt from God’s transforming generous goodness if it is, in complete faith, surrendered to his creative hands.
Predestination. Let’s admit we cannot fully understand this theme. Theologians, from Augustine to Calvin and today, have tried to combine logically the facts of God’s foreknowledge and human freedom. It cannot be done without leaving natural questionings about ultimate love and justice which cannot be shrugged off. Rather than emphasizing that “in the course of justice none of us would see salvation,” that “because grace is grace none of us is entitled to it,” that “no one can demand that God should give an account of the principles on which he gives his grace …” it may be more helpful to consider this passage practically as an expression of a mature facet of Christian experience. When Christians look back over the course of their life, even though they are conscious that they have decided of their own free will again and again at vital moments of crisis or encounter, there is all along the solemn conviction that God was at work. How the blend of human and divine is brought about no one knows or will know this side of heaven, but to look at the passage as lyric testimony leaves the mind at peace and praising, not crushed and daunted by somber thoughts of God.
