For Good
As I sat in the hospital recovering, and regained the ability to walk and to write, I started to pen these songs that had been forming in my mind.
One of the things I had been thinking about a lot was if God caused me to get so sick, or if it was His will for me to go through this. Could the loving God that I knew and trusted do such a thing? I wrote this:
Does God cause everything to happen?
Did He inflict this upon me?
Yes I know that He’s all powerful
But is He full of cruelty?
I remembered a line from a book I once read by Methodist minister Leslie Weatherhead, who said that we could never accuse God of doing something that would be illegal for a person to do! So I began to wrestle with this.
A Conversation That Changed My Perspective
Then on Good Friday, I was still in hospital and able to move about, and I walked to the next room in our ward and got chatting to a patient who turned out to be a nun. Sister Maureen had retired to the St Dominic's Convent in Boksburg, and she was in the hospital and struggling along. We shared stories, and then she said something along these lines: "But I think about what our Lord did for us when He went to the cross, all my suffering seems to pale in comparison. If He can endure what He did, I can endure what I am struggling with."
That changed my perspective! And the lyrics in this song reflect this:
But then I think about my Saviour
Beaten and broken on that tree
And I recall that God is working
In ways I simply cannot see
Why did this bad thing happen to cause me and the people around me such suffering? I don't know. But I do know that God is working in ways I can't see. And I believe that I can trust Him to use even my suffering for good.
God Works All Things for Good
Romans 8:28 says this: "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." There is hope in your suffering, because God uses even that for good.
Let the words of this chorus wash over you now, and may you take hope in the fact that He is using your present suffering for good, in some way:
I believe that God is sovereign, I believe He’s in control
I believe He’s truly working out His plan
Even when I cannot fathom, even when I’m suffering
Even when my knees can hardly stand
I believe God will use all this… for good
