We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. [Romans 8:28 (CSB)]
Several of the men from church met for breakfast and John, a retired farmer from Iowa, offered to say the blessing over their meals. After taking off his cap, he stood and said, “Lord, I sure do hate buttermilk.” The old farmer continued: “And, Lord, I don’t care much for lard!” After a slight pause, John added, “Truth be told, white flour doesn’t taste like much either and, Lord Almighty, baking powder sure is bitter!” Shocked at his words, the men sat in disbelief until John added, “But, Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I truly do love those fresh buttermilk biscuits! Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the biscuits, gravy, eggs, and bacon with which we are blessed this fine morning. Amen.”
John’s table blessing was a bit of fiction to illustrate Paul’s words in Roman 8:28 that “all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” When the Apostle said “all things,” however, he wasn’t writing about flour, baking powder, lard, and biscuits. He meant everything in life rather than a few, some, most, or many. Along with good things like buttermilk biscuits, love, health, and joy, Paul’s words cover all that accompanies life in our fallen world—things like sickness, betrayal, heartbreak, suffering, poverty, war, death, injustice, and abuse. Paul was not denying our pain or misery nor was he saying that all things are good. He was reassuring us that our sovereign God takes all things (both good and bad) and will put them together in some way for our good, according to His purpose.
Unlike a basket of fresh baked biscuits, God’s “good” doesn’t necessarily look like our idea of good and much occurs in our lives that we neither like nor appreciate. We can’t see a purpose in our difficult circumstances nor can we see how anything good can come out of such unpleasant, sometimes tragic, events. Consider Calvary—Jesus’ followers saw nothing good about sinful men torturing and killing the sinless Son of God and yet consider the salvation that came from it.
Even when life seems chaotic and inexplicable, we must remember that ours is a sovereign God who loved us enough to sacrifice His only son for us. An extraordinary multi-tasker, while God is busy orchestrating events in our life, He is doing the same thing for every one of His precious children. While we only see what’s right in front of us at the moment, He sees the whole picture—our yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows! God is in control and He knows what He is doing or, as one paster is fond of saying, “He’s at large and in charge!”
It only takes twelve-minutes for raw biscuits to cook and become palatable but God sets the timer on our difficult circumstances and it usually takes more than a few minutes in a hot oven to come to fruition. The disciples had to wait three days for the risen Christ, Joseph waited in jail for thirteen years before being made Vizier in Pharaoh’s court, and Israel spent seventy years in Babylon before returning home. Sometimes, the good that comes from bad takes a lifetime to materialize—and, sometimes, we may not understand until we are on the other side.
Just as John had to trust the biscuit baker, we must patiently trust God for the end result. Like baking powder, challenges and difficulties can leave a bad taste in our mouths. But, after God is done mixing them all together, they can turn into something quite wonderful (and much better) than fresh buttermilk biscuits!
There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot, from that situation, create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today. [Handley C. G. Moule]
My husband managed to track tar into the house on the bottom of his shoes. Unfortunately, he tracked it right onto the new bedroom carpet! I immediately got out a whole battery of chemicals and tried to clean it up. Needless to say, my efforts didn’t improve the situation; in fact, they only made it worse. In desperation, we did what we should have done in the first place: we got the name of a good carpet cleaner and called him. He spent as much time cleaning up the residue from my failed efforts as he did cleaning up the tar.
When someone has an unduly optimistic or positive view of things, they are often said to be wearing “rose-colored glasses.” According to Adam Anderson, a University of Toronto professor of psychology, our moods do affect the way we see things and, as moods change, so does our visual perception. “Good and bad moods literally change the way our visual cortex operates,” says the professor about a 2009 study he conducted. “In a positive mood,” he explained, “our visual cortex takes in more information, while negative moods result in tunnel vision.” He concluded that the better our mood, the better able our brains are to comprehend what it is our eyes are seeing. In short, we see better when we have a positive outlook of “rose-colored glasses”!
I think of Jesus’ instructions every time I pack for a trip! Take only what I’ve got on my back and the one pair of shoes on my feet? He’s got to be kidding! When we’re taking a trip, wanting to be prepared for any eventuality, it seems like I pack everything but the kitchen sink!
When my eldest grand took advanced calculus, I could neither understand what she was doing nor the purpose in doing it (other than gaining entrance into a good university). The following year, she took something called discrete math. Since I was thinking “discreet,” I couldn’t understand how numbers could be cautious or prudent. Even when she explained “discrete” means “individually separate and distinct” and discrete math is the basis for much of computer science, statistics, and programming, I remained in the dark. Fortunately, I wasn’t the one taking SATs and making application to colleges, so I didn’t need to make sense of her difficult curriculum.
