“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 NIV
I want to start with the third word “know” which is different than “believe”. To know something is to be aware of that something and have facts about that thing. Believing is hoping for but knowing is conviction of truth. As Christians, we need to make sure we know when it comes to God and what He is capable of and not just believe. Because we know, we keep moving forward with God.
“In all things” means ALL, not some, not just a few, not this one and not that one, ALL things. All things includes every part of our lives, the good times and the bad times as we describe them. The good times when we feel we are being productive, successful, encouraged, happy, and our lives are moving in the direction we believe they are to be moving in. The bad times when we feel we are unproductive, failing, miserable and events in our lives are not what we want them to be.
“God works for the good” is a tricky part of the verse because our definition of good is not always the same as God’s definition. Our definition of good typically means that every moment of our lives will be stress free and without conflict. Which we all know is unrealistic, but we hope for it anyway. God works for the good can be described as God taking each and every situation we face, our reactions, the resolutions of those situations and weaves good through it so that His will is able to be completed. As His children, we know that His will is what is best for us, since He can see everything and knows everything.
“of those who love Him” is an obvious because as His children we love Him, we are following Him, and have declared Him as our Lord. For those who have not done that, He is not going out of His way to work things for good. Now, He will work things for good if His will is involved in the situation. There is nothing He can’t do and He will not have His will stopped. We also show our love by being obedient to His will.
“Who have been called according to His purpose”. We are all called but only some of us accept that call and come to the Lord. Only some of us have decided to follow God and only some of us have given our lives over to God. When we do this we are lining up our will with God’s will and we are trying to walk the path the way He wants us to walk.
We can not take this verse to mean that everything always works out for our good, the way we want everything to work out, we need to understand that God’s will is perfect and that He will work situations out to further His will.