By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

God works all things together for your good. If the waves roll against you, it only speeds your ship towards the port

– Charles Spurgeon

We really liked finding things when we were kids. For some reason, great joy was created in revealing that which was hidden.

Kids love playing hide and seek. Although if I had to guess most kids love to be the hider rather than the seeker. Still, there is something about revealing your friends ingenious or obvious hiding places.

Or what about hunting for shells on the beach? Finding a huge smooth shell that curls in on itself, a small blue one with tiny ridges, a tiny white one the size of your fingernail. The number of shells that littered the beach just underneath the sand made our tiny heads swim.

I remember one of my favorite things to do in the doctor’s office was search for hidden objects in the illustrations on the first page of the kid’s magazine Highlights. What looked to be a normal picture of a cabin in the woods would have secret items dispersed throughout. There! At the base of a tree is a wooden spoon. Ooo, right there! What lookes like another picket in the fence is actually a giant pencil. Oh! That shingle on the house is actually an envelope.

Kids love seeking that which is hidden. But, even as adults, we don’t like the hidden. We demand to know the answers to the unknown. We need to know the reasons behind our sorrows. We have to understand why bad things happen to us.

Why did my loved one get cancer? Why did my child die? Why did I lose my job? Why did my friend betray me?

Question after question pops up in our minds throughout our lives. We put God on the witness stand and demand to know why He allowed such anguish to invade our lives. But, many times, God pleads the fifth. We don’t get the answers to our difficult questions.

But look at this verse:

“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:17).

I believe that one day, when we are in heaven, all of it will make sense. We will see the reasons for every sorrow, the intentions behind every hardship, and the meaning behind every tear. One day, all will be brought out into the open.

Although the answers for some of our questions are reserved for eternity, I believe that there is a verse in which God gives us a hint into why pain enters our lives.

“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” (Romans 8:28).

Every tear, every unexpected phone call, every gut-wrenching diagnosis, every betrayal and sorrow, all of it will be worked for good. And one day we will see it.