It's a promise we cling to, but one that in the deepest, darkest spaces of the mind, we are not entirely convinced we believe.

How is it possible for everything to work out for good—even for those who love God and seek to follow Him? The faithful suffer and die, they experience the same unimaginable tragedies and losses in life as the most pagan of the pagan. In fact, sometimes it seems that the most pagan suffer less that those who can legitimately claim kinship to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

So what gives?

I believe that one of the major problems existing within the body of Christ, the church, is one commonly suffered when people come to claim this verse. 

In another blog on this site I wrote about the importance of context in interpreting Scripture. Nothing's changed—those rules apply here just as they do in ever other passage. 

Human beings tend to focus on the temporal—the here and now—rather than on the eternal. But God's primary concern is the eternal and it is to the eternal that He directs the promise written for us here in Romans 8:28. The entire book of Romans describes how a loving Father worked out, and is working out, His predetermined plan for the restoration of the Creation that was damaged back in Eden (Genesis 3).

We know from experience that everything doesn't work out for good. And it isn't very satisfying to be told that we may not understand how all the "bad" things that happen to us are working out for good until we get to heaven. "Bad" things might just have been, well, bad. Of course, God allows them so that we can learn from them, but they may never, in themselves, suddenly and miraculously become "good." 

But heaven does come into the equation here. Because God is focused on the restoration of His creation which will reach it's final phase in heaven, this promise makes perfect sense when applied in that context. 

Let's work backwards. "them who are called according to his purpose." Now, I have some different views on this whole issue of calling, election, predestination, and all the other words that mainline theologians have confused us with. All that I will save from another time and space, but let me explain this phrase briefly since it is a vital part of the context of this verse.

God's purpose is the restoration of His fallen and damaged creation. That includes humankind. He has made provision since before the beginning of time to fulfill that purpose and to that restoration He calls us all. 

But not everyone will respond to that invitation. That takes us on to the next phrase: "…them that love God." This promise of good is only made to those who have accepted Christ's work of restoration in their lives through repentance and faith. When a person experiences forgiveness and the beginnings of restoration, that man or woman cannot but love the God who made those things possible and real.

Restoration is something God loves to do because that is the purpose to which He calls us.

This all brings us back to the harsh reality that "bad" things happen to God's restored creation—believers. This is where heaven comes in.

The first part of the promise says: "…all things work together for good." This verse was first written to encourage the early Christians in Rome who were facing tough times, including persecution and death. Not good! Not then and not now. But the promise was that whatever life threw at them, their salvation, their place in eternity was sure and all that was to come after this life was going to be good because they had responded to God's call and joined Him in the fulfilling of His purpose of restoration. 

There are lots of "bad" things that will happen to us as we take this journey through life. Some of them we will be able to look back on and see that they ultimately resulted in good. Others will just stay bad, even when we get to heaven (not that we'll care then). But the future that awaits us, the real life of which this one is only a poor imitation, will be all good for those who belong to God's family through faith in Christ.