Session 27 · Romans 8:28-30
Book Four, Chapter 5: The Obstinate Toy Soldiers
Where do you resist God's shaping, and where do you welcome it?
Book reading: Book Four, Chapter 5 (The Obstinate Toy Soldiers)
Reading: Book Four, Chapter 5 (The Obstinate Toy Soldiers). Then read Romans 8:28-30.
Lewis uses a tin-soldier picture for what God is up to with people. God's agenda is to change us into something truly alive. In the chapter, Jesus is both God and the true human, the pattern God intends for everyone. That raises a sharp, personal question: how do we resist that change, and how do we welcome it?
Romans 8:28 gets quoted on cards and coffee mugs: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” But the very next verse tells you what Paul means by good, and it is more specific than comfort. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” The good that God is working toward is that you come to look like Jesus.
That changes how to read the verse. Paul does not call every painful event good. He says God works in all things toward a good end, and he names that end. It also fits Lewis's point. If Jesus is the pattern of true humanity, then the shaping is not God making you into a stranger. It is God making you more fully human, the way you were meant to be.
There is a family note in verse 29 too. Jesus is “the firstborn among many brothers.” He is the pattern, and he is also the older sibling who has gone ahead. The same Jesus who is fully God took on real human life, and that is why you can look at how he lived and trust it to be a human pattern, not an impossible one.
Now be honest about where you resist. Resistance rarely looks like open rebellion. It looks like “I'll deal with that habit later,” or staying busy so a hard conversation never happens, or keeping one corner of life off-limits. Welcoming looks different: a place where you have said yes to being changed, even when it cost you something. Both lists are worth writing down. Seeing where you already lean in is encouragement, and seeing where you dig in is the first step toward asking for help.
A caution. If you are in the middle of grief, or have been hurt by someone, this passage does not ask you to call what happened to you good. If those words feel heavy, talk with a pastor, counselor, or trusted friend. Paul's promise is that God is at work with you and for you, not that your pain was secretly fine.
End today with a short, honest prayer: not “fix me,” but “show me where I am holding on.”
Key idea
In Lewis's picture God aims to make people truly alive, with Jesus as the pattern of true humanity, and Romans 8 names that same goal: being conformed to the image of the Son.
Questions to consider
- Where in your life do you tend to dig in when God seems to be changing something? What does that resistance protect?
- Romans 8:29 says the goal is to be like the Son. Where have you already said yes to that, and what did it look like?
Journal prompt
Make two short lists: places where you resist God's shaping, and places where you welcome it. Pick one item from the resist list and write a few honest sentences to God about it.
Practice
1. Spend ten minutes writing three places you resist God's shaping and three places you welcome it. 2. Choose one resistance and tell God about it honestly for two minutes a day for three days. 3. On each of those days, read one short scene from a Gospel and notice how Jesus handled something like what you are facing.