Good or Bad, This Is The Day The Lord Has Made – Rejoice!
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.’ (Ecclesiastes 7:14)
The context of the 7th chapter of Ecclesiastes, from the author Solomon, is about wisdom. Wisdom from God provides the knowledge that those who do not believe have; that life has meaning though it may appear meaningless. Solomon essentially tells us that all episodes in life have meaning, both when life is good and when life is bad.
Life of course would be easier if it was more predictable, but it rarely goes how we think it will go. I left home and thought I would make the Army a career as an electrician, and I wanted to be a paratrooper as well. It ended up I became an ‘Electronic Warfare Intercept Repairman’, which translates from Army jargon into the civilian term, ‘radio technician’. I never considered that it would take me down a path of living in several states (including Hawaii), travel literally around the globe, and into doing support and management of large government IT programs. During this journey, there were many ups and downs, and many doors that shut and many that opened, some that occurred due to what I thought were negative, bad events that turned out to be good – and vice versa – that got me to where I am today.
Sometimes negative things happen that we believe comes from some slip up we did, and while there are consequences for actions that are sinful or are mistakes, not all negative occurrences are our fault. In the Book of Job, we see Job’s loss of wealth, family, and health, not of his doing but from Satan and allowed by God to happen. Though Job suffered greatly initially, we see at the end of Job that God provided Job with double blessings, he had twice as much livestock and many generations of grandchildren he was able to see as his legacy.
In a more modern example, several years ago I had to turn down a promotion and a move to another location, which I thought would end my career, as I could not have my elderly mother move due to her health or leave her alone to fend for herself. I was devastated that I believed my career was over but my Faith allowed me to see that instead I was blessed with many more years with my mother, and I was able to continue my career (though I did not get another promotion) without having to move, which helped me grow in my Faith and my ability to work for the sake of the Gospel. The negative action ended up being a blessed, positive one.
We go into storms, through storms, and out of storms and sometimes in different phases or aspects of life we are in all three. Those storms can be blessings, either for us later or for someone who sees us. How we go through events can be a testimony for Jesus for the display of others who are watching. Look at the ‘bad times’ as those opportunities to lean upon the Lord, learn more about Him, and see His plan open up to you. Keep the Faith and keep looking upward to Him!
