I don’t need to explain why it might be generally apt to consider the meaning of the ‘worst things’ at this particular point in time. I could say more about why it is personally apt, but I will bracket that for now. Times of pressure, removal, change and confusion afford rare opportunities to look at yourself in ways you wouldn’t normally consider. What are your true motives? Where does your security really lie? How do you see the future playing out? Those questions get thrown to the fore.
And that is not to say that they get resolved, but asking in a new way revives the question. Voices from the past often help and provoke in these circumstances, and perhaps it isn’t everyone who reaches for the Puritan divines when pressed, but it appears I do. These people lived hard lives and in their writings there is an unflinching, systematic clarity of expression, especially in the analysis of personal motives and desires, which undercuts the kind of self-deception characteristic of our age.
If there is a generic sin with these writers it’s their allergy to brevity. But this has been broadly expiated by Banner of Truth ‘Puritan Paperbacks’ with their discerning editorial scalpel. Thomas Watson’s (1620-1686) ‘A Divine Cordial’ (1663) appears on this imprint as ‘All Things for Good’. The blurb says Watson ‘believed he faced two great difficulties… The first was making the unbeliever sad, in the recognition of his need of God’s grace. The second was making the believer joyful in response to God’s grace.’ Which sounds about right.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Watson expounds, from various angles, Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” And in the following series I want to share my reflections on some quotations from one particular section of his text. Readers gravitate towards the most piquant chapters of a book and I am no exception: Watson’s first chapter is entitled ‘The Best things work for Good to the Godly’ and details how promises, mercies, graces of God etc. bring good to believers. Each a great theme, breathtakingly explained… But chapter two, entitled ‘The Worst Things work for Good to the Godly’, discusses how the evils of affliction, temptation, desertion and sin all work towards the same good. I hope it doesn’t impugn my character that I am immediately drawn to hear someone’s answers to how these bleak things might work out well, and I hope you will want to hear too.