The working-together

This verse is often quoted carelessly, as if it said all things are good. It says something sturdier and more honest: all things work together for good. Flour is not cake; neither is a raw egg. The good is in the working-together, under a Baker who wastes nothing.

“And we know” — Paul writes it as settled ground, not wishful thinking. He wrote it toward a chapter that goes on to list tribulation, distress, and peril, so he was not being naive about the ingredients. The knowing rests on the character of the One doing the working.

There is likely something in your life right now that is not good and will not become good by relabelling it. This verse does not ask you to. It asks you to trust the working-together — the long, patient combining that you mostly cannot watch — for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.