Encouragement

From the book  The Promise:  How God Works All Things Together for Good by Robert J. Morgan.

"Everything that happens to you is for your own good.  If the waves roll against you, it only speeds your ship toward the port.  If lightening and thunder comes, it clears the atmosphere and promotes your soul's health.  You gain by loss, you grow healthy in sickness, you live by dying, and you are made rich in losses.
Could you ask for a better promise?  It is better that all things should work for my good then all things should be as I would wish to have them.  All things might work for my pleasure and yet might all work for my ruin.  If all things do not always please me, they will always benefit me.
This is the best promise of this life."                           --Charles Haddon Spurgeon            

"But Scripture teaches that we have a God who turns our problems inside out--ALL our perils and perplexities; none is excluded for those who are God-lovers, those called according to His purpose.  He brings blessings out of burdens, and He knows ho to wrangle gladness out of sadness.  God's guarantee in Romans 8:28 can alter moods, dissipate our discouragement, lessen the pangs of our grief, and usher confidence back into our hearts."  (p. xvii)

"Romans 8:28 is all-inclusive, all-powerful, and always available.  It is as omnipotent as the God who signed and sealed it.  It's as loving as the Savior who died to unleash it.  It can do anything God can do.  It can touch any hurt and redeem any problem.  It isn't a mere platitude but a divine promise.  It isn't a goal but a guarantee.  It isn't wishful thinking but a shaft of almighty providence that lands squarely on our pathway each day and every moment.
The Lord moves heaven and earth to keep this promise.  He puts His eye to the microscope of providential oversight and scans the smallest details of our lives, working them into a tapestry of blessing, making sure that goodness and mercy follow us all our days.  He turns problems inside out, transforming bad things to blessings and converting trials into triumphs.  He alone knows how to bring Easters out of Good Fridays."  p.4

"Since God is eternal, it is eternal.  Since God is omnipresent, His promises are too.  I'm never outside their range.  Since God is all-powerful, His providence pervades every event of my life.  Since He is infinite, His promise is perpetual.  Since He is merciful, His promises embrace even my sins, and when confessed and nailed to His cross, even good can come from them.  Good lessons.  Good counsel for others.  Good thanksgiving for His cleansing power.  Good testimonies of His liberating love."  p.9

"We cannot fully understand now," he said, "but when we stand upon the heights of glory, we shall look back with joy on the things we have suffered, for we shall know then that our severest trials were part of the 'all things' which worked together for eternal good."  --Dr. John A Broadus  p15

"Yes, the Bible does use the word HOPE.  But in the Bible, hope is not synonymous with MAYBE.  Biblical hope refers to sure and certain expectations, which, because they're still in the future, create in us a sense of anticipation." p35

"At the outset of every crisis or problem, we have to choose our attitude.  Either we'll collapse in despair and say, 'All these things are against me.' Or we'll decide to view them through the prism of Romans 8:28 and say, 'All these things may appear to be against me, but according to God's Word, all these things will work themselves out for my good in God's timing and providence."  pp37-38

"God can make all, and does make all, work ultimately for our good.  This is surely a staggering statement; but it is the statement that is made by the Apostle.  It is only in the case of Christians that we can demonstrate exactly how this happens, how all things are made to work together for our good.  Trials and tribulations and failures and sin are not good in and of themselves, and it is folly to pretend that they are.  They are bad.  How then can we justify the statement that all of them 'work together for good'?  The answer is that they are so used by God, and so over-ruled by God and employed by God that they turn out for our good."  p40  Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"Sometimes in the face of tragedy and disappointment, we can only hide ourselves in the promises of God until the storm passes by.  We have to reassure our heart with the facts of God when we can't calculate the sums of life.  We have to tell ourselves the truth, regardless of appearances to the contrary:  Not some things, but ALL things work together."  p54

for more on this book and trying to wrap my head around the tragedy in Joplin go here

written 5-24-11