Not Fate but Faith

There are no accidents in the life of the Christian—only providence. We don’t believe in fate; we believe in faith. We believe that God is in control.

Notice the first three words of Romans 8:28: “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” (NKJV, emphasis added).

What do we know? We know all things work together for good. Notice this verse says all things. It doesn’t say, “We know the good things work together for good.” It says all things. David, speaking of God in Psalm 119:91, wrote, “Everything serves your plans” (NLT).

This doesn’t necessarily mean that all things are good things. This is where we perhaps misunderstand. When someone is suffering, when someone is in pain, maybe Romans 8:28 isn’t the first verse we share. That will come in time, but there might be another verse we should choose instead. What happened to that hurting person is a really bad thing, and we should be saying, “I’m sorry this happened to you. I care, and I’m here for you.”

There are bad things that happen that simply will remain bad. And they never will be anything but bad. God doesn’t say He will make every bad thing good. Rather, He says all things work together for good. That means ultimately in God’s master plan, good things will result.

Things happen in life that don’t make sense, and we wonder, “Why is this happening? What have I done to deserve such a fate?”

I don’t know that I have the answer, but I do know that God is in control. I know that God is powerful. And I know that God is sovereign, which means He’s in control of all things.