Purpose Unveiled

by Betsy Childs

 
Americans like to get where they are going.  We don’t like to be slowed down.  Anyone who has taken a trip on a major interstate likely knows the disheartening sight of orange “Road Work Ahead” signs as the road narrows down to one lane and traffic slows to creeping.  Detours are inconvenient.  Even worse than an inconvenient detour are purposeless detours.  I have sat in construction traffic for what seemed like miles, only to discover at the end of the stretch that there was no construction; the project hadn’t been started yet!
 
Although I’ll probably never enjoy detours or traffic jams, I am far more willing to endure them if I believe they have a purpose.  If the road work will eventually make the road wider and thus shorten my commute, I am more willing to be inconvenienced.
 
One of the verses I heard most often growing up in the church was Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  Christians quote this verse in response to all manner of trials, from the relatively trivial crisis of not making the cheerleading squad to the devastating loss of a child or spouse.  Although the frequency with which we quote Romans 8:28 may have made it seem cliché or trite in some circles, I know of no more profound and hopeful promise in all of the Scriptures. 
 
I regret that the familiarity of this promise can make those who hear it fail to probe its meaning.  We stop listening midway through the verse, only able to retain the thought that God is working all things for good for those who love him.  Yet this verse also tells us tells us what kind of good He is working: purposeful good.  For not all good is purposeful. Ice cream is good, but it is not a purposeful good in the way that exercise is good.  Sleep is a purposeful good, as is parenting.  And those who love God have been called to a purpose.
 
Aren’t you curious to know what that purpose might be?  If we stopped reading at verse twenty-eight, we would only have half of the story and only be able to guess at the purpose revealed to us in verse twenty-nine: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”  This is our purpose unveiled: to become more like Christ.  (If you’ve ever wondered why God put you on this earth, now you know.)
 
Sometimes we can see an obvious reason God steers us away from the course we had intended to take.  I can think of several examples of this in my own life.  But other times, I can’t see any point to the detour.  I feel like a driver craning her neck, hoping desperately to see work going on, hoping that the disappointment has a purpose.  If we believe Romans 8:28-29, we can rest in the knowledge that every joy and sorrow in the life of a Christian is purposeful, and the purpose is to conform us to the likeness of Jesus.  God takes sanctification seriously.  He is resourceful enough to use anything to make us more like Jesus, even those experiences that seem to us like a complete waste.
 
Corrie Ten Boom (a woman who was no stranger to suffering) writes, “God has plans - not problems - for our lives.”  His plan is to make us look like our brother, his “firstborn” (v. 29).  The transformation may be painful, but it is purposeful, and the result will be glorious for all to see.