When preparing to preach on Romans 8:28 last Sunday, I was reminded of an imaginary dialogue I have seen floating around the web from time to time. Many people have found some sense of comfort in this dialogue, supposing that it illustrates God’s good sovereignty at work in the lives of his children.

The dialogue goes something like this:

Person: Why did You let so much stuff happen to me today?

God: What do you mean?

Person: Well, I woke up late. My car took forever to start. At lunch they made my sandwich wrong, and I had to wait. On the way home my phone went dead just as I picked up a call. And to top of it all off, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my new foot massager and relax. But it wouldn’t work! Nothing went right today! Why did you do that?

God: Let’s see. . . . The death angel was at your bed this morning and I had to send one of my angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that. I didn’t let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that would have hit you if you were on the road. There was salmonella in the first sandwich that was made for you, and I didn’t want you to catch that. I knew you couldn’t afford to miss work. Your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call. I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered. Oh, and that foot massager? It had a shortage that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark.

Person: I’m sorry, God.

God: Don’t doubt that My plan for your day is always better than your plan.

Of course, it is possible for God to intervene in specific ways to keep people from getting sick or hurt or dying. But the dialogue leaves us with the impression that God is working all things for the “good” of our staying safe and healthy. It says that our consolation is to be found in believing that God allows some minor inconveniences in order to shield us from greater disasters.

But that’s a serious misunderstanding of God and his plan for his children.

Because sometimes the drunk driver does hit the van filled with children. Sometimes the sandwich does poison us so that we get sick and miss work and lose pay. And sometimes people do use our words to destroy our reputation. And sometimes the divorce papers do show up on the kitchen table. And sometimes the diagnosis comes as cancer. And sometimes the power goes out and everything goes dark.

If the outcome of God’s plan is the “good” of keeping you healthy and wealthy and comfortable, then it wasn’t good for the Apostle Peter because he died a martyr’s death. And it wasn’t good enough for Paul because he was beheaded. And it wasn’t good enough for Jesus because he died on a cross. And it isn’t good for the many Christians, past and present, whom God allows to suffer in excruciating ways.

The problem with the above dialogue is not just that it misses the point of Romans 8:28. It also scorns the glory of God, mangles the plan of God, and exchanges hope in God for a pitiful, contemptible counterfeit.

No, God is not a genie who is busy keeping you from salmonella and drunk drivers and cancer and power outages. He is infinitely better than that. He can use those things for a higher purpose that will satisfy you infinitely more than health and safety and comfort—and, most importantly, will bring glory to himself. The “good” of Romans 8:28 is not comfort and safety, but his children being conformed to the image of Christ for the glory of God (Romans 8:29).

Your ultimate conformity to the image of Christ is the only thing that simultaneously exalts God and thrills every part of your being.

In light of that—not some imaginary dialogue in which your inconveniences are justified by God’s shielding you from disasters—we can say with the Apostle Paul: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

“Start by reading something that will warm your spirit,” Martin Lloyd-Jones advises preachers who struggle in their prayer lives. “Get rid of a coldness that may have developed in your spirit. You have to learn how to kindle a flame in your spirit, to warm yourself up, to give yourself a start.”

I’ve taken that advice to heart, and Robert Murray M’Cheyne is my kindling of choice. As a young man, he wrote out what he called his “personal reformation”—a continual and deep examination of his heart and behavior. There were three parts to this “personal reformation,” highlights of which I include below.

1. To maintain a conscience void of offense

“I ought to confess my sin the moment I see it to be sin. . . . If I go on with the duty, leaving the sin unconfessed, I go on with a burdened conscience, and add sin to sin.”

2. To be filled with the Holy Spirit

“I ought to study the Comforter more—His Godhead, His love, His Almightiness. I have found by experience that nothing sanctifies me so much as meditating on the Comforter, as John 14:16. And yet how seldom I do this! Satan keeps me from it. . . . If I would be filled with the Spirit, I must read the Bible more, pray more, and watch more.”

3. To gain entire likeness to Christ

“I am persuaded that nothing is thriving in my soul unless it is growing. ‘Grow in grace.’ ‘Lord, increase our faith.’ ‘Forgetting the things that are behind.’ . . . I ought to strive for more purity, humility, patience under suffering, love. ‘Make me Christ-like in all things,’ should be my constant prayer.”

Before I began pastoring my current church, a friend recommended The New Pastor’s Handbook: Help and Encouragement for the First Years of Ministry. And how thankful I am for his recommendation!

Here’s an excerpt I especially appreciate:

“As pastors, we must resolve to study, live, and teach the Scriptures. Our people need us to know, breathe, and abide in the Word of God. They need us to have a daily encounter with the living Christ through his Word, because it is from this Word that we have something to give them. We teach, reprove, correct, train, and equip on this foundation. Apart from knowledge of the Word, we have no competence in the ministry” (from The New Pastor’s Handbook by Jason Helopoulos)

Enough said.

Ever had to make a difficult decision? I sure have.

Of course, what counts as “difficult” depends on who you are, your level of experience, and the magnitude of responsibility. Harry Truman had to decide to drop an atomic bomb on Japan, to deploy U. S. forces to the Korean peninsula, and to relieve General MacArthur of his command.

You’ll probably never have to make decisions on that scale.

But you do have to make decisions that—for you—are difficult, even agonizing. Besides the complexity of information to process, the feelings of the people involved, and the conflicting stories you are hearing, you face another big obstacle to good decision-making: yourself.

I don’t mean your own weaknesses, lack of experience, etc. I mean this: the very pressure to decide can compromise a leader’s ability to make a good decision. This is why a friend of mine once told me that the right decision is abundantly clear until you’re the one who has to make it.

If only you could split yourself into two people—the one who bears the responsibility to make the decision, and the one who, free from that responsibility, can see what the right decision should be.

I know of only one way to do just that, and here it is: Take some time to write out—or at least think out—the decision as if it were a section in a historical biography. Fast-forward twenty-five or fifty years—when the dust has settled and emotions have cooled, when the principles at stake are better understood and the guiding values come into focus, when the decision may be viewed as a laudable step forward in the march of history, even if it’s just your personal history or the history of the organization you lead.

Then, from that serene vantage point, you may just get a better glimpse into what the right decision should be, and—just as importantly—gain fresh courage to execute it.