Just Wait
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 NASB
For good – Undoubtedly others have pointed out to you that this verse says nothing about your good. The Greek is eis agathon, a preposition plus a singular, accusative adjective. It isn’t even “for the good.” It’s as if Paul is reminding us that what God does, all of what God does, is to be viewed in the context of possessing the highest virtue. In other words, God does not make mistakes. God’s actions are filled with excellence. End of story.
But it’s not the end of the story for us, is it? We often wonder, and sometimes verbalize, just how these present circumstances can be any part at all of a godly master plan. We don’t see the end, and consequently we get stuck in the middle.
“At times of transition, we are neither here nor there. We will not stay in transition, but it can be hard to believe that temporary difficulties are only temporary. If we believe that transitional places are permanent, we are no longer on a journey of transformation; we are stuck in a place of frustration. Confusing transition for destination added layers of anxiety to the way ancient Israelites considered their prospects. . . . Their collective failure of imagination, and perhaps the failure of leadership to arm them with a constant, embracing vision of the future, made them unable to accept challenges that would dissipate naturally with time and a change in conditions. The future will only look like the present if you do not allow it to look like anything else.”[1] [emphasis added]
As Brown notes, “Humans are conduits of a divine master plan that they cannot control.”[2] Yes, and that’s the rub. We are caught up in something that is beyond us, but that only makes us fight all the harder to take over the outcomes. We don’t like not being in control, even if our perceived control is admittedly illusory. We don’t want to be pawns on the board. We want to be the strategist playing the big game. As a result, we put imagination in retirement, and think that what is now is always. Our future is nothing more than an extrapolation of our present. We have no sense of transition. And we suffer the consequences of the infinite progress of the customary.
Just wait! You and I have no idea of what God will do next. Our imaginations are the victims of mundane mental rape. We have lost the ability to create a different world because we have been traumatized by this one. Our visions of God’s creativity are truncated by our cerebral dissatisfaction with the temporary. But “good” is a long sequence of temporary states of existence. Tomorrow things will be different—if you expect them to be.
Topical Index: transition, for good, eis agathon, temporary, Romans 8:28
[1] Erica Brown, Leadership in the Wilderness: Authority and Anarchy in the Book of Numbers, p. 1.
[2] Ibid., p. xxiv.
Oui je suis d’accord, tomorrow things will be different.
Possiblement, mais nous avons seulement aujourd’hui pour le faire arriver.
Do I need to SEE the future to imagine a better future? Does my VISION of the future need to be clear, specific, defined? Is it my responsibility to creatively and constructively IMAGINE my better future and if not, if my imagination is too dull, I will be stuck in my undesirable present? I don’t think so. I don’t believe I need to KNOW my future like that to have faith, to have hope, to have peace, to love Him, to be called according to His purpose IN my undesirable PRESENT. I only need to KNOW HIM, He who loves me, He who has not only been with me and has been faithful and good to me in my PAST, but He who WILL be with me and will be faithful and good to me in my FUTURE. My vision does not even need to be about my FUTURE, except to the extent that He has made promises about it. It’s not so much my FUTURE that I need to vision about. It’s not so much my future that I need to SEE. Maybe that’s why He hasn’t revealed so much about our promised future even after the restoring of all things. Because it’s not the future I need to know.
IT’S HIM I NEED TO SEE. IT’S HIM I NEED TO KNOW. IT’S HIM WHO NEEDS TO BE MY VISION. THE FUTURE WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF AND THE GOOD OF HIM IN THAT I KNOW IN MY PRESENT WILL BE THE GOOD OF HIM THAT I KNOW IN MY FUTURE, AND EVEN BETTER WILL BE THE GOOD THAT I WILL KNOW OF HIM, BECAUSE THAT’S WHO HE IS! THE ONE WHO EVER REVEALS HIMSELF, MORE AND MORE, TO THOSE WHO DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM, TO THOSE WHO LOVE HIM, TO THOSE WHO ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE!
Remember the song, “Be Thou My Vision”? I think that says a good bit of what I’m trying to say. [google “Be Thou My Vision – Jonas Park” video if you’d like to listen to it now – he’s my son and he and his wife, Laura, lead worship at IHOP-KC]
Thank you, Jerry! It’s not about me; it’s about HIM! Halleluah! I love that song, and sing it in my day. I think I will go do that right now. “Keep your eyes upon Jesus”. Amen.
In other words, faith. To allow the present to sling us around is the practice of death. Why do we think that death is only about the end of life? Death is about right now on this planet. Either we are going to be trapped in faithlessness (which keeps us in the past, even if it is the split-second past), which is a form of death because a lack of faith kills our participation in the future (even if it is the next-split-second future), or we must practice that death to self that Paul was doing when he said “I die daily”. On this planet, death is inescapable, but we get to choose whether or not it is death-into-life, which is that death to self that allows us access to our full range of choices that our insistence on staying in the past had us blocked from (for choice does not work in that past), or it is a “savor of death unto death” in which we spend an entire life dying our way into the Second Death, too. If I choose to die right now (turn around, or, repent for choosing death) I can live right now, but if I insist on the “practices of death” (all forms of a lack of faith)I am already dead. I really do need to get the hang of this, y’all!
Self, I am beginning to be convinced, is a construct of the past; of death. Our perception of self is based upon experience, but by the time our senses serve us with that perception, it has already passed into the past. To stay in the flesh, then, is to stay in that past; stuck in what-is. To worship self, then, is to worship the dead (practice of necromancy), even if it is the dead self of a split second ago. We either are looking back like Lot’s wife or forward like Abraham, who practiced that necessary faith even though he was a pilgrim in the Promised Land; it was never his, but because he lived AS THOUGH it were, it became possible for his descendants. His faith opened their door, and in doing so, it opened his, too.
Unlike the past, the future is not about ME. The self of the past is only a bit part of the Big Plan, which faith opens the door on. God’s will is always going to be done, but my faith allows ME to become part of it. “Out of death into life” is not about what is going to happen at the end of my life; it is about the start of it right now. Faith is the missing ingredient that gets me out of the past that I cannot change into the future which I can change MYSELF in to. Change, at the end of the day, is not about controlling everything else; change, and the corresponding choices that cause it, is about giving up on trying to control things for mySELF. Faith assumes that everything is already being controlled satisfactorily; and the only thing missing is me. Time to get myself back out of the death of what-is (past) into the present of what-should-be. Time to practice faith in the Great Controller. Halleluah!
Hello I recall someone wants telling me that a believer is the same as a Hebrew in the sense that they are” passing through”I think I would agree with that. It has somewhat of the same context the way skip brings out the cause for the greater good God is in control I see it as called one must be called not only chosen but also called meaning for me I’m following something I’ve heard I’ve seen or I believe in. The revelation of Yoshua to me in reality that is where I’m following and that is where I’m headed.
God’s miraculous Word!
Romans 8:28 says we KNOW that He works all things together for good.
We KNOW!
Thank God that His Word reveals Himself to our selves . . . so we KNOW to
cool our jets.
“Be still, and KNOW that I am God”
I agree , Transitions no one wants to look at where you are right now and humbly start over. So glad you like the book .. Dr. Erica Brown is one of my favorite, Talmud Scholars and leadership Guru..that challenges us all to look at our self first..
“You are my hiding place and my shield; I wait for Your word” (Psalm 119:114 NASB). May we continue waiting with “expectant anticipation, not stagnant reclining.” [1] [paraphrased]
[1] https://skipmoen.com/2013/11/hidden-hope/