People often say, “Everything that happens is for the best.” Through the years people have licked their wounds with the false comfort of this misconception. To believe that everything is for the best is not Christian optimism but blind fatalism. To say this is to fail to take evil into account. It is to call evil good. Men are free to choose evil as well as good. Evil choices lead to evil consequences. Much of the sorrow and suffering is due to the wrong choices or sinful acts.
Though the Bible never says that everything is for the best, it does say, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Life is not meaningless or haphazard for the Christian. God is at work in the life of his children, seeking to make them like his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ideal person. Nothing better could happen to us than we become like him. It is God’s grand design.
To this end God can and does use all things that happen to us. This is not to say that God causes all things—nor that all things are good. It is to say that God is not limited in what he can use. No experience is a total waste if we put it in God’s hands. What we count as bad, God can use for some good purpose. God is not malicious, and he is not rushed in his work. It is difficult to see the good in many experiences at first, so we must give God time to use it and mix it with other things to bring good from it.
A man was once marooned on an uninhabited island. For weeks he spent all of his energy gathering bits of wood to build himself a house. After it was completed he went for a walk on the beach and while he was gone the house burned.
His heart was broken and he thought that all hope was gone. The next day a ship came to the island and rescued the man. He asked the captain why his ship had chanced to stop at the deserted island. The captain said, “We saw your fire last night and came to investigate.” What seemed to be a tragedy turned out to be a blessing. Life is that way.
God is at work. Nothing should cause more optimism in life than this. Line your life and purposes up with God, and he will cause all things to work together for good in your life also.