But God…

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Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

As my pastor preached on this topic last night, I realized that what I planned to write about today had to be postponed. My heart was both comforted and challenged as I took a new look at this very familiar verse of Scripture. Along with the Serenity Prayer, these may be the words most memorized by people who have a broken heart.

Our pastor uses the King James Bible, but he challenged us to take another look at Romans 8:28 by looking at some other versions. What I saw is that the NIV and the NASB put God a whole lot sooner in that verse than does the KJV. According to Pastor Dale, so does the Greek. It would be better translated, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good…” (Emphasis mine)

I won’t ever be able to explain to your satisfaction or my own why tragedy has entered our lives. And it is a tragedy when your husband walks out on you. It is a tragedy when you’ve raised your kids to live for the Lord and they walk away from Him and from you. It is a tragedy when you bury someone you love.

Those who pat our hands in the middle of our tragedy, verbalize their platitudes and then go back to their clueless lives add to our pain, our loss, and our sorrow…all of which are real and sometimes overwhelming. And I sometimes have to ask, “Why?” “Why my kids, my husband, my health, my sorrow?”

Had you asked me to define “synergy,” I would have told you it meant the sum is greater than the combination of the parts. While that’s true, it means much more than that. “Synergia” is a Greek word that means the creation of a whole that is greater than the parts. Bottom line: It would not come to be without all the parts…and I mean all the parts.

God hasn’t made a mistake, and nothing in my life or yours has taken Him by surprise. God isn’t against you, my hurting friend. He is for you, He is for me, and He has allowed some things to come into our lives to bring about an end that wouldn’t and couldn’t happen otherwise.

You see, God doesn’t come along like the Red Cross after the catastrophe happens. He’s there before it even begins. He’s there in the beginning when our child is arrested or our husband walks away. He’s there in the middle when we’ve lost our hair to chemotherapy. And He’s there at the end when we may begin to see what He was doing all along.

I don’t understand, and I may never understand why it takes a tragedy to work a miracle. But I know the difference my broken heart has made in my own life. God is about the business of making me into the image of His own Son. And trusting Him in that process might just give me back my joy.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, put God back in the equation and put Him where He belongs…in the beginning?