Here is a selection of independent quotations from books I am reading. I hope they offer as much food for thought for you as they have for me!

“Thus Romans 8:28 must be seen within the context of the redemptive purposes of God. In all things—in our suffering, groaning, hoping, waiting; in “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword” (Rom 8:35)—in all things God is working “for the good of those who love him.” That “good” is the final and complete realization of God’s love for creation, incarnated in Christ, from which nothing can separate us (Rom 8:39).

“In all these things,” Paul is convinced, we can be “more than conquerors” (Rom 8:37). Not on the basis of our efforts, nor on the basis of blind faith, nor through a kind of stoic resignation, but rather “through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37) and called us “according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). That good and loving purpose finds its completion when the whole creation, including our bodies, is freed from bondage to decay.”

(Hard sayings of the Bible, Romans 8:28)

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” (H. L. Mencken)

“If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator?” (Lewis, Problem of Pain, 5)