Years ago, I read where Patrick Morley was visiting with an elderly, “saint-of-a-woman” he knew. He wanted to pose a question only a saint could answer, so he asked her to explain Romans 8:28. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (NLT).
She thought for a minute, then said…
“Well I guess it’s just that God don’t waste nothin’.”
I’ve never forgotten her words. They explain a lot.
Maybe the most basic of questions… the one that follows “Is there a God?” is “Why does God do what He does?”
The answer is simple yet incredibly complex: For His glory. I substitute the word “praise” for the word “glory” because it says more to me.
The world and everything in it was created to praise God. When things go well with us, we praise God and thank Him. That’s easy. But when things go badly, it gets harder. The wider the gap between what we wanted and what God allowed to happen, the greater the faith we require to explain it to ourselves.
The most vivid example of this is when Jesus’ friend Lazarus died.
But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this” (John 11:4).
Two days after he died, Lazarus was brought back to life. His sisters and friends got to see God’s glory in real time. We can imagine they celebrated and praised Jesus big time.
God didn’t “waste nothin’” in Lazarus’ death. He got the praise He deserved. And everything was restored for Lazarus and his family in the end. They just had to wait to understand and receive it.
The same is true for us. The same Jesus who prevailed for Lazarus will prevail for us in the end. It may not be experienced in this life, but the outcome will be good… because our God is good.
We just have to wait and trust that the pain we experience now will become praise in the future. Because by faith, we believe God don’t waste nothin’.
Question: Do you have something that God didn’t waste… for His glory?
