For those who have flown much with commercial airlines, have you had a “connecting flight” that made you worry a bit, sprint fast enough to lose your dignity, or even cause you to spend a long night of intercom interruptions on the airport floor? I have. All three have happened to me many times. With that being said, our gracious God recently reminded me that He is in control of all of the details that don’t feel like they can stay connected or will be connected when this bigger, longer trip of life is over.

The picture above is of the C concourse at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, an airport regularly touting over their loudspeakers that they are “the busiest airport in the world.” My flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Atlanta was running late and the connecting flight was already loading when I landed…meaning I likely was going work up a good sweat running to a gate several concourses away only to find out I was too late and all of the rebooking hurdles that follow. That was the likely outcome I was stewing on as I worked to travel back yet again to my wife and long-Covid riddled son in northwest Arkansas…until God’s sovereign-over-all fingerprints unmistakably showed up.

Due to some issues with the plane’s internet and airline app, I discovered only as I was walking up the jet bridge that my arrival gate was “C3″ in the ATL landscape of hustle and bustle and my departure gate to a very obscure airport was…wait for it…”C1.” The connection could NOT have been any CLOSER in an airport that boasts 193 gates strong that are strung across two terminals and seven concourses! That all coming together may be viewed as “random” or “coincidental” to the casual observer, but to us-the guy and family working through more than our fair share of travel and therapy fatigue right now-it was a tender, intimate reminder that God has got this…has got us-including all of the pieces and parts that feel like they will never fit together.

May I encourage you, wherever along the journey of life, work, family, ministry, etc. this post finds you, that God can truly cause “all things to work together for good.” In Romans 8, Paul presents several encouragements to the believer including this pinnacle fact: In the midst of the sufferings of this life, God has given us knowledge that He is working every detail of life to the end established in His eternal purpose. Here are a few takeaways from this precious passage that God has been palpably teaching me regarding the “loose ends” that feel so unresolved and desperately require His connecting work:

The promise of all things working together for good refers to the ultimate/eternal condition of those who love God, not prosperity gospel’s health and wealth now.
Ro 8:28a “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…”

God uses “all things”—everything in this life, including suffering (Ro. 8:17–18, 23–25)—to accomplish his purpose for us in his grand plan to conform us to his Son and to preserve us until he finally glorifies us. Notice the “them that love God.” Until we love God more than we love the quick, clean resolution of everything that is off or wrong in our lives, we will never navigate those same issues with the right heart posture before Him. God is not a “vending machine” that spits out what we want, when we want, and where we want it. That “god” we are so prone to manufacture is too small, feeble, and irrelevant to oversee our complex lives filled with other-wise overwhelming doubts, unknowns, and pain. Focus less upon figuring it all out and making it all happen. Focus more upon the love of God and your undeserved, glorious relationship with Him. To be WITH Him in the end means we-with all of our present issues-WIN! This alone frees us from the divided heart and schizophrenic-like focus that are far too common in our ranks.

The promise of all things working together for good is given to a specific group, not the whole human race.
Ro 8:28b “…to them who are the called…”

The called (those who are in Christ Jesus and justified by His blood) alone have access to this “no sweat” mindset…it is not in play for the rest of those who inhabit this planet with a willful rejection of Him. It, the hard to articulate thing we have have between us and God, is that special! This means that the pervasive fatalism and despair of this present world at large has no place in the hearts of God’s people. We have a future reconciliation of all things that should vibrantly color our every attitude, conversation, and relationship. We are not victims. By God’s grace, we have been afforded special privileges that must be stewarded with confidence and rest. As one writer put it, “If you have rest issues, you likely have trust issues.” Rest is the opposite of sweating our way through life…only possible when we remember Who called us and Who we have called upon to begin this sure, progressive journey to eternal life.

The promise of all things working together for good is about God’s purpose, not ours.
Ro 8:28c “…according to His purpose.”

One of the greatest challenges of not just flying but living is feeling like life is out of our immediate control. What provides structure to our lives is not getting our way-a fickle, moving target-but God’s eternal purpose being accomplished not despite but with the very “things” that feel so random and disconnected in our present lives. There is no breath, no event, no atom, no corner or crevice of the earth that does not fit into this ordained-from-the-foundation-of-the-world purpose. That includes the most overwhelming and painful ones like we see all around us. (Even the eternal state we are promised with God is not “getting out of this world to heaven” but living in this very same world by which God will bring heaven to earth by fully redeeming/restoring it.) When we forget this irrevocable truth is when the ultimate sweat of the soul, anxiety, subtly creeps in. As one counselor/author wisely put it, “Our anxiety comes not from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it.” Stop focusing upon making it all make sense. Spend far more energy and time trusting the only One who has big enough shoulders to not only know but control the future.

The promises of all things working together for good is about the chain of connection that God has forged, not our efforts and wisdom.
Ro 8:29-30 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

For those who think I am, with the above verses in view, about to substantively weigh in on the age-old debate of Calvinism versus Arminianism, your hopes are likely to be dashed. All I will say in general is that you can tell, as one theologian put it, if someone is an Arminian or a Calvinist by how they answer the question “What was the decisive cause of your faith in Christ?” The Calvinist says, “The decisive cause of my faith was God,” and the Arminian says, “The decisive cause of my faith in Christ was myself.” Our church is neither in name but both on this doctrinal front since the Scriptures, as a whole, clearly teach it is a tension to manage, not resolve…we strive to be responsible with AND dependent upon the powerful plan of God!

With that very succinct comment on a very loaded subject, the more important takeaway for this post is that structure of these two versus provides some incredible peace and clarity to we who are still “in process” as the following “A = E” graphic illustrates:

Notice the overlap between each clause. The second verb in each line serves as the first verb in the next. This is what binds the five clauses like “links in a chain” as several have asserted. Paul is affirming that precisely the same number of people—indeed, the exact same group of people—are foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. (Or to spell it out, A = B = C = D = E.) Andrew Naselli writes, “The good news is that this chain is unbreakable, having been forged by God himself. None of this means that our preaching or faith is unnecessary…It simply means that God hasn’t left the composition of Christ’s family in the hands of fickle human beings. That’s why all things will work together for good.”

I find that most of our wandering into extremes that exclude one aspect of God’s sovereign plan or another is that we forget the broader context/purpose of these verses. As Douglas Moo concludes, “This sequence of verbs is a famous debating ground…But we must not lose sight of Paul’s main point, namely, to assure believers that God has a plan he is unfolding, one that provides fully for our future glory. He wants us to come away from this text not with theological questions but with a renewed sense of assurance.” Your part in God’s will, with all of its undeserved benefits, doesn’t depend upon any sequence within your control or even outside of your control.  God’s plan for your life will happen because He has taken full responsibility for make it be brought to completion.  Where are you not realizing or resting in the fact the “God has a plan for my life” including the feels-very-disjointed parts that are apart of His unbreakable chain? A plan, by the way, that is ultimately not about temporal connections but eternal ones that cause us to be fully “conformed to the image of His Son” (29b).

I write this as our family, with much love and support from all over, continue our #healthforlandon journey…a journey that has seen some progress but still feels much more unresolved, disjointed, and missing the nice pretty bow of definitive conclusion on top that we would prefer. All I know is, based upon the timeless truths of the above text, that where we’ve been and where we are presently FIT NO MATTER HOW THEY FEEL as crucial parts of where we are headed with God’s full favor and plan. This allows me to be fully present and peace-filled while in a life with so many open-ended situations/scenarios.

So, in conclusion, what does this all mean for we who are still “in flight”? It means that we must allow our good, faithful God to not just be the jet fuel of our journey (raw power) through life but our air traffic control tower (careful oversight). Did you know that the energy put off by the sun EVERY TWO MINUTES is equal to ALL THE ENERGY USED BY HUMANITY IN A WHOLE YEAR!  (The same sun created by the Spirit of God who moved upon the face of the waters to create the carefully choreographed orbit of all things in our solar system at just the right distance!) All power sources get exposed under stress and over the long haul…anything less than God’s Spirit will not keep us as the fragmentation of life and our own weaknesses persist. Choose to believe in a sovereign God who is not only the source/sustainer of all things, but the One who keeps them from falling apart through gaps or crashing into each other as He accomplishes His interconnected, perfect plan through lives like the one so tempted to sweat his simple-to-align-by-heaven-itself connection in Atlanta, and wherever the in between “already true” but “not yet” fully realized place you are today.