I heard this from the mouths of survivors of the last round of horrific tornadoes to hit our country the other week. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Well it's a bit of a mystery to me as well. Whenever I have trouble defining something I always turn to the best dictionary I have... The Bible. Everything I want to know is in there. What I read is time after time that there are "good" people having all kinds of bad come upon them. Why? Why God?
I'm left with this, these things happen because God wants to see your light shine in the midst of darkness. It's not cruelty. I don't believe He causes these things to happen but yet He lets them happen because He wants to see you go through it. When you walk into a pitch black room and hit the light switch, is there a battle that goes on between the light and the dark? Does darkness try to negotiate how much light to let in? No, there is no struggle whatsoever. Bam, the light has just overtaken the dark without so much as a whimper. That is how it is with us who are children of the most high living God. There is no struggle, we just show up and the light has just taken over.
So when I'm looking in the bible for answers to these things, I find that, a) God knows what's going to happen to us before it happens, b) He usually warns us if we're tuned into Him. c) He wants us to experience it to be a beacon of light in the darkness.
There are tests that each of us are faced with every day. When we pass the tests, we are very rarely asked to go through it again. It's when we don't pass the test that we just keep coming around that mountain again until we do. We have one assignment while here on this earth, to look just like Jesus to the rest of the world. That is it. I heard many of the people from the tornadoes being interviewed declaring God's goodness to them that let them survive. One man was in a mobile home that was tossed and rolled over and over until it disintigrated with him still in it. He was scratched up but that was about it. Visibly shaken he just thanked God for protecting him. Do you think this man will have more or less fear in his future? I would guess he would have much less to probably none.
Last fall we went through a terrible flash flood that ruined our pasture fencing, swimming pool, entire finished basement and killed almost our entire herd of goats. The next morning when friends started coming around, I was consoling them letting them know it was a good thing. I never shed a tear until they started crying for us. Really, it was a good thing. Our daughter's future husband came to us, we got to really clean the pool very well which was looking pretty bad anyway, and I got to share my faith with numerous people throughout the whole thing. "Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood..." I now know what that hymn is all about. Now I know that we will never experience that again! We passed the test. His Glory was seen by quite a few. It's going to take a lot more than that to shake our faith in Jesus.
So whatever it is you have to face today or tomorrow, remember that God wants you to go through it for His glory. Do you have a ranting raving lunatic of a client in your face? Give them what Jesus gave you, grace. We have a saying that we like... the first one to the cross wins. Everytime someone calls me who is very unhappy or dissatisfied, they always leave my presence much better than they came. I am an ambassador of Heaven. I must give them Heaven and do. They never know why they feel better, they just know they do. Remember this one thing if nothing else, "If you want the peace that surpasses all understanding, you've got to give up the right to understand."- Bill Johnson. On our best days we never get what we deserve, we get what Jesus deserved, GRACE. On Jesus' worst day He took what we deserved for us.
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