ROMANS 8:28 - ALL THINGS MEANS ALL THINGS

I’ve had so many people tell me they are “glad my life has worked out the way it has.” Thanks! I am too. However, if I am going to be honest with you, I have to be the first to say how things haven't "worked out for me" randomly. But it is God who has worked things out for me purposefully.

And nothing I am doing today has happened overnight, the same way a 100-meter sprinter doesn’t win his race in those 10 seconds of running. The victory for the sprinter was incremental and daily. It was a long process of training and pressing, resting and stretching. Those “10 seconds or less” are just the evidence of years of hard work and discipline.

Likewise, prison for me wasn’t a walk in the park, but more like a day in the gym. It was daily working out my salvation with serious thought (Philippians 2:12) and training myself in the Word of God from a serious heart (II Timothy 2:15). It was one day at a time for 55 months in the midst of the most vulgar and immoral environment one could ever find themselves in. I dare not exaggerate.  

Scriptures such as Romans 8:28 encouraged me to take my grip off of my circumstances, which made room for the Hands behind this truth to put His grip on me--“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”  And “all things” really does mean “all things.” No matter what those things look like, from death to divorce, cancer to criticism, God still works them into His perfect plan.

We may not agree with such ingredients, but that doesn’t stop God from using them.

My life truly cannot be explained without running into grace. Meaning, I would not be where I am today, doing what I am doing today, without God’s plan having its perfect way…in spite of me. Again, to see the “10 seconds” of a sprinters performance isn’t to see everything the runner went through, but it is to see the manifestation of what he was training for in the first place.

In other words, things don’t just work out for good without God. It may appear as if coincidence, chance, or luck are on someone’s side, but truth be told, God's grace is the only design that works things together in its perfect time.

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