Perhaps

In one of my previous post I said that one of my favorite verses these days is Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” And it just so happens that a Sunday afternoon service I attended recently contained a sermon based on this scripture. So of course my ears perked right up and I’m so glad they did because I heard some really good stuff that I would like to expound on here.

First let me start by giving you a little background on the verse from Romans. I’ve heard it said that you should have 20/20 vision when reading the Bible – read twenty verses before and twenty verses after the one in question. In English and Literature we call this context. In this specific text Paul is writing to the Romans while many people were experiencing the anguish of suffering. A few years before Paul wrote this verse many Christians had been expelled from their homes and had returned only a few years before. A few years after this text was written to the Romans the evil emperor Nero killed many of Pauls readers due to false accusations against Christians. Overall Rome wasn’t a great place for Christians during this time and they suffered often and repeatedly for their faith.

The minister who presented this lesson had an analogy to go along with it. It was about this man who was a member of the church that had just lost his job. Now he was a little bummed about his job but he remembered what Romans 8:28 said and he decided that that verse must mean that God had a better plan for him. That God had a plan for him to get a new job. A better paying job – yeah that was why he had been let go! God was going to work for good and bless him with a better paying job. So months went by and the man received offers for new jobs – some paying about the same and some paying a little lower than his previous job. But he declined them all because they weren’t that job that he thought God was planning for him with better pay. And still more months went by and after two years of being unemployed he complained to his wife that God still hadn’t blessed him with that better paying job. And she explained to him that he had taken God’s word out of context and it didn’t mean he would see better right away – it just meant that ALL things would work together for good, have patience and keep doing what God says. This man had forgotten about the perhaps of it all.

You may be thinking what do I mean by the perhaps of it all? Well let me explain. In the book of Philemon there is one section where Paul, who was imprisoned at the time, is writing to fellow Christian, Philemon, about his slave Onesimus. Paul writes to tell Philemon that Onesimus was brought to Christ while he was with Paul, but he has decided to send him back. He says, “I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.”(v.12-14) Paul then beseeches Philemon to receive Onesimus back not as a slave but as a brother. Verse 15 says, “For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever.” Paul was trying to say that maybe Onesimus had run away to fulfill a greater purpose of being brought to Christ himself, ministering to Paul, and then returning to minister to those of the house of Philemon as well. There is that word I want us to focus on right in this verse – perhaps. Perhaps. Meaning maybe, possibly, for all one knows. Perhaps. Paul said perhaps this happened to Onesimus for just this reason. So perhaps things happen in our lives for such reasons as well. We do not know God’s will but we can hope and perhaps good will come from it.

“For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever,”

Philemon 1:15

There are many instances in the Bible where awful things happen to God’s people but we see the good works come from it in the end. One is Daniel. I’m sure most people have heard of Daniel at some point and at the very least they heard the story of him in the lion’s den in Bible class as a kid. However, Daniel’s story does not begin the lion’s den – that’s actually the middle. Some people also don’t know that Daniel was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, but again their story is just a small part of Daniel’s. His story begins with Daniel following God’s will when he and his companions did not eat from the Kings table. Daniel 1:8-9 says “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs.” Daniel stood his ground, intending to obey God and not defile hisself by eating those things forbidden by God and he and the others prospered. In chapter 6 verse 3 says, “Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.” But it wasn’t long after Daniel had been raised to such a high position of honor and authority that “the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him” (v. 4) but later they realized this and said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God” (v. 5). So they tricked king Darius into signing papers that said if people worshiped God they would be thrown into the lion’s den (why they thought this would work when clearly it had failed when Nebuchadnezzar put Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in the fiery furnace who knows) knowing that that was the only way they would find fault in Daniel. But Daniel remained faithful and God sent an angel to close the lions mouth. So first Daniel stood up for what was right by hisself, then was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in the fiery furnace, followed again by Daniel standing up by hisself in the lion’s den. Perhaps Daniel and his friends suffered these things to show both kings the power of God and bring them to praise His name. Perhaps.

“Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.”

Daniel 10:12

Another example of God’s people suffering can be found in the book of Esther. In the book of Esther things are not looking so good for the Jewish people, Esther’s people, but she finds herself in a unique position to make things better for them. Esther was a wife of the king, Xerxes I. Previously, she was a member of the harem of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes I), but when the former queen, Vashti, fell into disfavor with her husband the king chose Esther to be his wife and queen. Perhaps she was noticed by the king “for such a time as this” to save her people. It is written, “And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”(v. 14) Perhaps Esther was born for such a time as this, perhaps her very existence and the suffering she and her people had faced was all so she could save them. Perhaps.

Additionally, there is the story of Joseph, and his story has a lot of ups and downs in it! It begins with Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers because of their jealousy. He remains faithful and continues to serve God so he prospers and becomes the head of Potiphar’s house. However, trouble comes for Joseph again when Potiphar’s wife sets her sights on him, but he rejects her advances so she goes to Potiphar and he has him put in prison. But again Joseph remains faithful and becomes the guard’s right hand man which allows him to meet the king’s butler (cup barer) and baker when they fall into disfavor with the king and are thrown in jail. While there they both have dreams and Joseph interprets the dreams for both of them which come to be as he says. And Joseph asks the butler to remember him when he is restored to his position which the dream had reveled, but he does not remember him until two years later when Pharaoh has a dream that no one can interpret. When Joseph interprets the dream the pharaoh is so impressed with him that he put Joseph over his whole house and made him highest ruler second only to the pharaoh himself. (v. 40) And through this position Joseph is able to help not only his people when they come looking for help during the seven years of famine, but also the Egyptians, and is able to reconcile with his own brothers. Joseph told his brothers, “And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth.” God sent him before to preserve. So perhaps Joseph suffered all these things to show God’s faithfulness and love to a great multitude of people in many lands not just to him, his people, and his family. Genesis 50:19-20 says, “Joseph said to them [his brothers], ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.'” Perhaps.

“But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will beneither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”

Genesis 45:5-8

So these struggles you are facing now may be your perhaps. Perhaps you are struggling financially now to be able to minister to others who find themselves in this same situation later in your life. Perhaps you didn’t get that job or were let go because a better job is coming along – maybe not better pay but a better more Christ-like environment or better hours so you can be there and be that influence on your family for Christ. Perhaps someone passed away to influence others to Christ by the way they lived their life. Perhaps that relationship didn’t last because there is a more God centered one waiting down the road for you that will be better for your relationship with Christ and for your future children’s chance at everlasting life. Perhaps (and this one is a tough one for me) you and your spouse are unable to conceive because there is a child out there waiting for you to adopt them and make not only their lives better but their eternity as well. Perhaps a million things. And maybe you can’t see an acceptable perhaps out of your struggle right now and maybe you’ll never know it or see it but know it is there and God has a plan for our lives – to give us a hope and a future. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these things are good – the opposite in fact. No matter how rose-colored our glasses are, there’s nothing good about cancer, war, or death. Until Jesus returns and conquers Satan once and for all, sin will continue to poison this world, corrupting everything it comes into contact with, but just because we can’t see it (because we’re blinded by the bad that is constantly before us) that doesn’t mean that God isn’t working in our lives for good. All things may not be good, but God can and will use all things for good. A single day is made up of a thousand different moments, think of the impact changing just one of those moments can have on your day. That’s how our lives are in God’s plan – all little moments, like the inner workings of a machine, forming together to make up life and time itself, make up all things.

All things. The good, the bad, the ugly, the mundane, the in-between, the seemingly insignificant, the hard things – ALL work together for good.