THE WORKING OF ALL THINGS

It's Friday. How has our week been? Hectic, blissful, stressful, successful, full of failures or a mixture of everything? Maybe you didn’t hit the goals you set out for yourself or you didn’t get the things you were expecting. Perhaps you have been disappointed in business. Something or somebody did not respond the way you were expecting. It could be regrets, you wish you had done something earlier or that you had refused to do something.

All these things are unavoidable symptoms of human life. I wish I could tell you that as a believer you are immune to mistakes or that life wont rub you the wrong way sometimes, but I’d be lying. That is not what Jesus promised (he promised a life of peace and victory in spite of circumstances). What I can tell you is that you are not at a disadvantage. Consider the promise of Romans 8: 28

“We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to create something good and beautiful when we love him and accept his invitation to live according to his plan”

The Voice Translation

In other words, God works all circumstances in your life to create a beautiful outcome. Everything is working together for your good. Everything is going to come out just right as God intends for you. Every mistake, disappointment and mishap are being shaped to result in a glorious destiny. God doesn’t create disasters and darkness, but he has a way of making it work out for the best

Let’s not shy away from a condition that was attached to this passage. Two things: Love God and accept to live according to his plan. This might seem like onerous conditions but a deeper look will reveal the loving heart of our father

Love God

The Old Testament law is summed up in two main instructions; the first one being Love God, with all your heart, all your soul and with all your strength. But do we really love God, can we really boast that we have given him our all? That’s where the good news comes in

We love because he first loved us

1 John 4:19

The key to loving God and just loving in general is a keen awareness of God’s love for us. We respond to God’s love by loving him in return

Living according to his plan

Another onerous looking one, just ask any regular Christian, the will of God is the most ambiguous thing ever. There’s the good will, the permissive will and then there’s the perfect will of God; You have to figure which of your decisions and desires is which. Your choice of wife might not be God’s perfect will for you. She might not even be his will at all. Or she could be his permissive will. God’s perfect will could be for you to go into full time ministry. But he can permit you having a career in fashion. Throw all that balderdash aside and just rest. God is not looking for mind readers, he’s not in a relationship where you have to decipher whether he’s happy or not by his body language. He’s not into being ambiguous or hiding himself. He is the God who constantly wants to be known. Every time the will of God is mentioned in the New Testament, it is always referring to God’s desire to make us conformed to the image of Christ. It is his will that all humanity be an expression of the life of Christ. It is that simple. That we all in our unique way are Christlike I.e. loving and living loved. Just go to the next verse in the passage Romans 8 and you’ll see it, he has predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son. Living according to his plan is simply acknowledging this desire of God and living in the consciousness that there is a transformation agenda at play. And what’s better than being conformed to the image of Jesus? He lived a great life and is now seated at the right hand of the Father.

Now that you have acknowledged that its all about God’s love and his plan to make us better people. Rest assured that God is going to take your life circumstances and use them as building blocks for your good.