Playing Music Backwards (Romans 8:28)
God’s Words:
Romans 8:28 And we know that God works all things together for good
to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
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REFLECTION
Playing music backwards. If you do it with country music the cowboy finds his dog, his truck gets fixed, then his sweetheart comes home. It’s an old joke, but what a concept! If we could only pull it off in real life.
Real life lately has been highly challenging. Physical, social, economic, and emotional pressures unpredictably multiply and invade our daily lives.
One day, while pondering these pressures, I remembered that country music joke and started to fantasize about playing our lives backwards, back to before these current sufferings started, back to easier times. What a concept! All it would take is playing life backwards.
But we can’t have backwards, not in real life. All we have is forwards. And that’s where God comes in. Romans 8:28 says that for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose, He causes all things to work together for good. Work together. The words have a forwards ring to them. God is talking about a work in progress – good promised, but not yet complete. Something we have to wait to see.
God doesn’t fix our plights by taking us backwards to good times gone by. He takes us forwards, first to fleeting tastes of heaven and then to heaven itself. Suffering is part of that process. I hate suffering. I don’t really understand why it has to occur, and I don’t comprehend God’s methods. But I do trust His heart. Why? Because He purchased my future good with His own suffering. I can trust such a heart. And, knowing His heart, I can wait, perhaps in tears, but also in peace.
Because God bought our future good with His own suffering, when we suffer we can trust His heart.
The music of this fallen world is often sorrowful; its tones clang against our ears and rip at our hearts. But what we now hear is only part of the composition. God has already written the last notes. His finale is perfection itself. And He always plays to the end of the song.
Playing Music Backwards (Romans 8:28)
© Lynne Fox, 2016.nRev 2020
biblegrapes.com
Thank you for clearly expressing what I have been experiencing! The Lord has allowed me to go through a refiner’s fire, and I most certainly suffered with many tears. I thank the Lord that He gave me the faith to keep holding onto Him. How is it that, even though I wish He had not allowed the pain, I still think He is good? As you say, He has already earned my trust! Once again, the merciful sacrifice of the Father in sending the precious Son to be our Lamb, the willing, obedient heart of the Son who chose to give His atoning blood, and the following resurrection in power that beat all the odds, give me ample reason to trust that in my life, too, God will use all things for my good, because I love Him, and because He loved me first. He does that for us all. Glory to You, God.
My hope is being realized – BibleGrapes is indeed nourishing its readers. You’ve encouraged me with your words. Thank you.