One woman said, “When things go good, I’m still sad, cause I knows things will be bad again.” A country song says, “Gloom, agony, and despair, If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” It seems there are days when nothing goes right. You get up on the wrong side of the bed, coffee is lukewarm, shower is cold, you eat black toast, the cat hates you, the dog runs away, your wife is crying, kids are on I-Pods, your car won’t start, the tire is flat, traffic is slow, almost out of gas, gas prices high, buy gas, credit card unacceptable, check bounces, you are late for work, and then the boss yells at you. You are having a bad day!
As one man was about to jump off a bridge, another man stopped him, and said, “Things can’t be that bad. Let’s talk about it.” After they talked, both jumped off the bridge.
Well, how do you respond to a bad day? An eagle simply flies into the storm and uses it to lift him above the storm. Corrie Ten Boom said, “When the train goes into a dark tunnel, don’t throw away your ticket and jump off. Just sit and wait until the light returns. Learn to trust the engineer.”
At the time, you may not understand it, but God can make the bad things work together for your good. I learned this lesson from Case Hardware in Trenton. I needed a certain color of paint. I gave Cathy a stick sample of my old paint. She put the stick sample under an electronic device, opened a gallon of white paint and squirted in black and red colors. She then squirted several other colors. Then she shook the paint can on a shaker and handed it to me.
I trust her, but I just did not see how she was able to blend it all together to make my special color. I requested she open the can to show me the actual color.
She smiled as she opened the can, stuck in a stick, then used a heat dryer on it. She then handed the stick to me. It was exactly the right color. She had blended all colors together to make it just right.
Later, I thought of how God blends and works all things together for our good. He squirts some love into our troubles and heartaches. He squirts some understanding into our tragedies. He squirts some patience into our sorrows. He then shakes it all together, applies heat, then works it all together for our good. If I trusted Cathy to blend my paint, surely I can trust God to blend all things together for my good.
God is too wise to do wrong. I just need to be more patient and let God work all things together for my good.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). God will have the last word and it will be good.
These Are Words of Wisdom.
Ted Camp is director of Silent Word Ministries, a worldwide ministry to the deaf based in Trenton. E-mail him at TC@silentword.org to be added to the email list for weekly articles or phone (706) 657-8000.