For the key verse in this Scripture reading, like best the King James Version: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." No! Not everything that happens in life is good (much of it is very bad). But when you add all the happenings of life together and look at the whole of life, for the person who has faith in God, for the person who loves God and shares the love of God, that life is good. The whole of life, its ups and downs, are good when we see them interrelated in a life under the guidance of God.

Who would say that the life of Paul (with all its imprisonment, shipwreck, beatings and final execution) was not good, very good? Who would say that the life of Jesus, even with the denial and the cross, was not good? Then why should not the totality of my life…