Overcoming the Storms of Life # 4: The "working together for good" part of storms -- Romans 8:28 in action!

In our entry last week I shared that my favorite “life verse” has always been Romans 8: 28.  The New Living Translation says it this way. ^“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”

One of the ways that I have discovered “good” to result through the challenges I have faced is this.  Storms give us opportunity to witness for Christ to others. Trusting God in our tough times is a great witness to the world. 

When people know that we serve the Lord and they see us handling difficulties by trusting in God, they see that our faith is real. The apostle Paul knew this well. His “thorn in the flesh” caused him great grief and three times he asked the Lord to be relieved of this affliction.

Yet, what was God’s answer? In 2 Corinthians 12: 8-10 (ESV) we read: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient to you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Mothers of Nations, what incredible trust Paul had in the Lord and what an awesome witness he was to others and to us still today.

Many Christians believe that because they are saved, life should have no hardships whatsoever. But Paul shatters that myth in this passage, showing us that even his prayers were not answered the way he wanted them answered. However, he also tells us that it is in times of our greatest weakness or storm that God is most powerfully at work in our lives.

Oh that we could all stay in peace with that attitude!

Another way that storms can work together for good is that these hard experiences can get us back on track, back into God’s perfect will for our lives. As life unfolds at times we can get detoured by all kinds of circumstances until we find ourselves headed down a track that is less than best for us.

But then an abrupt unexpected storm can force us to reevaluate where we are headed and where we are focused at that very moment. We could call these unforeseen situations a “hello – wake up” calamity perhaps. We discover that we need to evaluate if we are actually in the boat with Jesus. Or have we taken control so much ourselves that we are completely now off course? Basically, through the circumstances we face we realize the Lord is saying to us, “No, you cannot go that direction any longer.”

Mothers of Nations, we pray that our steps are ordered of the Lord, and at times, He uses the unexpected to get those steps back on the correct path. I remember when our family faced a “tornado of trauma” regarding a storm related to our daughter.

She was soon to become engaged and in a single unexpected encounter, realized that her “almost” fiancé was seeing another woman.  Her relationship with this young man abruptly terminated in just one day. The fallout of pain and grief was traumatic for her but also for us, her parents, as we walked through this storm with her.

The ”good” that God worked through this extremely hard experience was that it caused her to reevaluate God’s plan for her life, her spiritual heritage, her future spiritual destiny.  She had gotten off course and taken a detour with this relationship and God allowed tough circumstances for her to reconsider the plans He had for her life.

Jeremiah 29:11-14 became her refuge.  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me, and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity.”

After the initial trauma of her broken relationship, she chose to adjust her life and get back in the boat with Jesus. We laughed as she told me that she was no longer interested "missionary dating." She was choosing to be “satisfied in her singleness.”

And then, once back on track in her relationship with the Lord and with His perfect will for her life, it was less than one year that the Lord supernaturally placed a man in her pathway that was her destiny to marry.  They met in March and were married the next January! 

The unique circumstances in how they met could only have been orchestrated by the Lord. That first “near engagement” relationship would never have been God-focused or ministry oriented at all and the Lord could not let her go forward with that. He had plans for her good and His perfect will.

Now many years later she is serving the Lord in a wonderful God-based marriage. What was so painful at the time God was using to work His GOOD, His BEST in her life – Romans 8:28.

Mothers of Nations, have you had storms in your life where you were able to minister to others through your testimony?  Or have you faced hard circumstances that caused you to get back on track in your walk with God?

I love knowing that our God is always taking these “all things” and working them together for our good! Don’t you?

Rev. Nola Beintema