One day in October 2010, in Baku, Azerbaijan, I was killing some time before I picked up my children from school, sitting in a playground near the school. It was a small one between two apartment buildings. And in the playground, there was only one boy, about six or seven years of age. He climbed onto the slide. But he slipped and fell. It was just a small children’s slide, and the ground was sand. So, he wasn’t injured at all. Scared and shocked, however, he began to cry! Being the only adult there, I felt responsible to do something for that poor little boy. I approached him and said something in Azerbaijani—but it was only my third month of Azerbaijani study.
“Narahat olma. Hər şey yaxşı olacaq” (‘Do not worry. All things will be okay’).
He did stop crying for about a second, looked at me wondering what in the world this foreigner was saying, and began to cry even harder. My effort failed. He stopped crying when his mother finally appeared from the balcony called him in. He ran home and disappeared.
To be clear, the phrase “Hər şey yaxşı olacaq” (‘All things will be okay’) did not work for the Azerbaijani boy primarily because of my frustrating accent, rather stern face, and dull, textbook Azerbaijani.
However, if we think deeply enough about the phrase itself (“Everything will be okay”), we know that it cannot really comfort us. It can sound shallow and empty because it seems to reflect unfounded positivism, a promise that cannot be kept, or an idle hope that is soon to be dashed.
What the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:28 offers something deeper than what the everything-will-be-okay mentality promises to give.
“For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Paul does not simply say that everything will eventually turn out to be okay. Rather, what he says is that all things are working together—in the present tense—for good. It really is an amazing claim. And Paul says that this blessing is not for everyone but for those who love God—namely, those who have been called according to God’s purpose. Simply, what Paul describes is the firm foundation upon which we believers are to build our lives—our sovereign God is in control and makes all things work together for our good. That is why we can hold out hope for our lives. Paul says “all” things, not just “some.” The logical conclusion of Romans 8:28, therefore, can be summed up in what R. C. Sproul had said: “The bottom-line assumption for anyone who believes in the God of providence is that ultimately there are no tragedies.”
Photo by Bambi Corro on Unsplash
