And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Background
Why would a loving and powerful God let bad things happen?  For the same reason you do and you think it is a good thing.  If you have not read the FAQ word picture of the 6-year-old on the website, do so now — really, go read it.

The book of Romans is the most comprehensive compilation in the Bible of principles and purposes for the Christian living.  The primary audience was the Christians in Rome and many of them had little understanding of the details of God’s work with Israel over the prior 2,000 years.  They were also far away from core set of believers in Jerusalem and they had a wide variety of people trying to influence them such as orthodox Jews, Gnostics, atheists, etc.

The recipients of Paul’s letter had a huge lack of information.  They didn’t have the full Bible because the New Testament was still being written.  They didn’t have an Internet full of preachers or other resources.  They didn’t have dozens of churches to choose from.  Even getting a copy of Paul’s letter would very limited.

They were in deep need for a comprehensive overview of what to believe who was Jesus and what were the fundamentals of His teachings.  But God has His ways of getting His Word out!

The context for this specific passage in Paul’s letter to them (the “book” of Romans) was the turmoil they were seeing in relationships and in the culture.  If you live in a “first world” country today, you likely have a much lower threshold for the definition of persecution and suffering than what they were experiencing.  Slavery was common and fairness / justice was reserved for a privileged few.

Imagine living in that world and looking for evidence that God exists and is good.  Imagine being the 6-year-old in our word picture wondering why my parents don’t rescue me from my suffering?  Are they not able?  Do they not care?  I don’t understand!!!

What it meant to the original audience
This letter covers a wide variety of topics including how you can KNOW that you are going to Heaven, that God loves you unconditionally completely independent of you “being a basically good person” and how to build relationships modeled after the relationship God offers us.

This passage specifically gave them foundational perspective on the mess all around them and how it fit into our full life now and in eternity.  It gave them perspective and peace in a world full of turmoil.

For us today
Depending on where you live in the world, you may already be seeing a world as harsh as what they saw or a world heading in that direction.  When we see or personally experience unfairness or injustice, we need perspective and hope.  Paul tells us:

• God loves us unconditionally.  There may be rewards and consequences, but those are in the context of love.
• We can KNOW that we will spend eternity in Heaven.  This life seems like a long time, but it is a blink of an eye in our full eternal life.  Heaven will be full of only people that have decided to trust God and He will be there in our direct presence to mediate when things start to go wrong.
• We mature in character when a wise and loving is there to help us understand and grow from the results of our free will actions.
• We can have peace and purpose in the middle of chaos if we are in sync with who God is and what He is doing.

This world is a mess.  But we can find peace and purpose in the storm if we take the time to step back and connect with God.  Instead of being in distress over the mess, we can see the opportunity to be a part of the good plan God is rolling out.