(Rom. 8:28.)
Do we really believe this oft-quoted scripture? Is it a deep-grained abiding truth in us? It is our privilege to find the "good," and to profit by it. Paul said:"This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13,14), a proof that he believed this truth.
We stumble, blunder, and fall often; perhaps not into gross sins, although this is possible if we are not truly humble and watchful. Yet we do grieve "the Holy Spirit of God" and we can quickly know it if we are truly yoked with our "meek and lowly" Shepherd. We can be as quickly restored too, for "The Lord is my Shepherd .. .He restoreth my soul" (Ps. 23). Still, though we may fully believe all this, is it not possible for us to forget it? "Yea, I think it meet," says Peter, "as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. .. .1 will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance…. though ye know them, and be established in the present truth" (2 Pet. 1:12-15).
"These things" are a part of the "all things;" there are other "things," however, that distress us-things that are adverse to us, that affect us most painfully, that Satan delights to get hold of and to accuse us of "before our God day and night" (Rev. 12':10):these trouble us more than anything else; and were it not that we "have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous" (1 John 2:1) we would indeed become discouraged and faint in the way. But even these are a part of the "all things." He pleads our case, even though the Father may be chastening us for our many sinful blunders. Sometimes so distressed that we know not how, nor for what to pray, we can only groan and sigh:but we have a "Comforter," who translates the groans and the sighing into words. "He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God" (Rom. 8:27). Yet the "chastening" goes right on. We cannot be indifferent, nor think lightly of it; "nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb. 12:11). Let us then be "exercised thereby," for this is the way to find the "good" -"the peaceable fruits of righteousness."
Do we not too often dwell on the blunders of yesterday, and carry them over into to-day, and even into the to-morrow? We thus become so loaded down with the "sin that doth so easily beset"-that afflicts us, like an "enemy without the gates – that we sink under the burden.
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). This, then, is the way to find the "good." Do we practice it? Do we believe this most gracious, faithful word? If God is so "faithful and just"-to our Advocate, of course, for He represents us before God-as to "forgive us our sins" we will not fear though the lion may roar and the serpent may hiss:"If God be for us, who can be against us" (Rom. 8:31) ? S. A. White