Luther Burbank, the world famous scientist, worked for years to
try and develop a black-petaled lily. He had several thousand
experimental lily plants in his laboratory. A sudden cloudburst let
loose a flood of rain that they were all washed away. William
Stidger tells of sympathizing with him over what had happened, and
Burbank said to him , "When anything like this happens I always
remember a little couplet my mother use to quote:
From the day you are born
Till you ride in a hearse,
There's nothing that happens
Which couldn't be worse.
We have all sought to comfort ourselves at some point in life by
recognizing this reality-it could be worse. It is almost always true,
but still it is a negative comfort. Your life can be a mess, but others
are even worse. If this is the best you got, then it has to be what you
hang on to, but there is a better and more positive way to deal with
the negatives of life, and that is to wait and see if what you thought
was bad turns out to be good, and instead of being the worst, it may
in reality be the best thing that could have happened.
That is what Paul is writing about to the Philippians. They are
worried about Paul. They heard he was thrown in prison in Rome,
and they have naturally concluded that his being arrested was not a
good thing. They assumed that his ministry, which they supported,
was now on hold, and Paul would be of no value in advancing the
Gospel now. Paul says not to worry, for your gifts are not money
down a hole. His being arrested turns out to actually help the
advance of the Gospel, and give him a better ministry than the one
he had planned.
The key to being an optimist is having the patience to wait and
see what God will do with your negative experience. We so often
jump to the conclusion that bad stuff is just that, and that alone.
Sickness, trials, shipwrecks, stoning, and prison do not sound like
prizes for which you would sell many lottery tickets. Nobody wants
this sort of stuff in their life if they can avoid it. What Paul learned
by his experience is that the bad stuff of life can be a way for God to
use your life in a way that good things could not be used. Paul's
being a prisoner led to his having a ministry to the palace guard of
Nero, and some of these soldiers came to Christ, which never would
have happened had he not become a prisoner. He never would have
crossed their path had he not been arrested.
The fruit of Paul's ministry in prison was quite extensive, and he
writes in 4:22, "All the saints send you greetings, especially those
who belong to Caesar's household." Paul had Christian friends in
the highest places, even the house of the Emperor. There is no
reason to believe this ever could have happened if Paul had not been
treated like a criminal. This is one of the answers to the question-
why do bad things happen to good people? It is because
bad things are often the only way to get us in touch with the right
people, and to make us willing to go the way God wants us to go. In
other words, bad things are tools God uses to get the job done in our
lives. The point is not to rejoice in bad things, but to rejoice in the
Lord who can use bad things for good goals we never would have
achieved without the bad things.
Colonel Bringle of the Salvation Army became a very popular
author. He came out of Harvard with honors, and began his
ministry on a street corner in Boston. A drunken hooligan threw a
brick at him and hit him in the head. He received a concussion that
put him in the hospital for months. During his convalescence he
wrote a book called Help To Holiness. He added four volumes, and
these devotional aids sold in large numbers around the world. He
said, "My brethren, if there had never been a brick, there never
would have been a book." His bad experience opened up doors he
never would have entered had they not compelled him to do so.
Don't be so quick to label bad things as a curse. Wait to see if it
might be a blessing. Even pray to that end.
Grace Crowell wrote a poem that says it all.
Yet as I live them, strange I did not know
Which hours were destined thus to live and shine,
And which among the countless ones would grow
To be, peculiarly, forever mine.
If I but wait, perhaps, this hour will be
Like silver in the sun, some day, to me!
Paul never dreamed that his days in prison would be days God
would use him to let his light shine through all of history because of
the epistles he would write there. We should pray, "Lord this is a
bad day I am having, what good can you help me make of it for your
glory?" F. W. Boreham, the great Australian preacher and author, tells of
his pastor friend who was asked in Seminary to preach at a certain
church one weekend when the pastor became ill. He had other plans
with 2 of his best friends, and he did not want to go. He suggested
other names and begged to be excused, but the Professor refused to
let him off the hook. It was with deep anger that he submitted, and
he went to the church in a negative mood, wanting to curse them
rather than bless them. But all of his negative feelings were sheer
waste, for he met the love of his life there, and his whole future was
changed. Had he just waited to see what the end result would be, he
could have saved himself a lot of grief. On of the most common
phrases of the Bible is wait on the Lord, and the reason is, we need
to learn to wait and see what God in his providence is going to do
before we label bad things as a curse.
Bad things often turn out like Paul's being thrown in prison.
They are stepping stones to fruitful blessings that could not be
foreseen. God loves to work in all things, even bad things, for good.
It is God's specialty, and wise is the Christian who has a wait and
see attitude toward bad things. Because Paul had this attitude, he
did not have to back off earlier testimony. Had he jumped the gun
and written saying this is the worst thing to ever happen to me, and
now my ministry is ruined, he would have been embarrassed to have
to later say it was a great blessing. He waited to see what God would
bring to pass. Jowett wrote, "The cloud, which appeared so
ominous, brought a gracious shower; the restriction became the
mother of a larger liberty." Prison bars and progress sound
incompatible, but Paul just waited and sure enough, he saw his
arrest lead to advance. It was a promotion to a higher ministry.
Why is it so important for Christians to grasp this reality that
God can use evil for good? Because most of the unbelief in this world
is base on this very issue. Most atheists are so because they say a
good God cannot exist and permit all the terrible evil and suffering
there is in this world. Many people do not believe in God because
they feel they are better than God, for they would not permit the evil
that exists if they had the power of God. So who needs a God who is
less noble and compassionate than they are themselves? This would
be a fairly powerful argument if the Bible did not reveal that God
permits evil for a higher good. He permitted evil men to kill His Son
for the sake of redeeming lost men. He permits men to become lost,
because only those who are lost and then found again can be truly
righteous and loyal to God forever. Satan was made perfect by God,
but he fell because of pride. That will never happen to those
redeemed by the Son of God. They will be eternally loyal, for they
know they are what they are by the grace of God, and not by their
own wisdom, power, or goodness. If God is going to have an eternal
kingdom with assurance their will never be another rebellion, he
had to permit a world with evil and free choice. This terrible fallen
world is essential to the perfect world to come. God will bring good
out of all its evil.
What good is evil? It is the opportunity to be a child of God. Paul
says do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Use
evil to reveal your good. Let your light shine by showing the contrast
of the good to the evil.
Where there is hate show love.
Where there is greed show generosity.
Where there is bitterness show forgiveness.
Where there is gloom show joy.
Where there is anxiety show peace.
Where there is violence show gentleness.
The point is, if there was no evil their would be no way to identify
the good. The goal of history for the Christian is to bring good out
of evil, so that evil does not win the war. Whenever you stop with
evil, you let it win. The Christian is to overcome evil with good, and
that means to go over, around, or through it, and if you can't avoid
it no matter what, then seek to use it for some good and outwit it.
The providence of God is God working in history to make bad
events and circumstances lead to good consequences. Paul's
imprisonment was bad for it was unjust and unfair, and caused by
hate. God used their evil scheme to get the Gospel into the very
household of Caesar. This was the beginning of Christianity
becoming the official faith of the Roman Empire.
We often forget the idea of no pain, no gain philosophy, and we
resist making anything bad for our children to endure, even when
we should know that helps them to become stronger. Cheryl Forbes,
a Christian journalist who worked for Zondervan Publishing House,
wrote a book called Backdoor Blessings. Her first job was terrible.
The boss was an older women who made her rewrite almost
everything she submitted for publication. For a year she resented
this snooty miss know-it-all. But slowly it dawned on her that she
had become a good writer, and she owed it all to this boss she did
not like. Had the boss been a good buddy, and let her get by with less
than her best, she never would have attained the level of expertise
she had reached. The one she thought was her enemy was really her
secret friend.
In Acts 9:16 God said of Paul, "I will show him how much he
must suffer for my name." Paul was chosen for a tough life, but out
of all the evil he had to suffer, the world is still, an will forever,
reaping the good fruit of his life. His thorn in the flesh was a pain he
had to endure lest his pride caused him to lose his favored status
with God. It is a principle of life that if someone you love will be a
better person by what they suffer, then love will permit that
suffering for the sake of that goal. If your child will be more loving
as a person by being discipline, then in love you must inflect pain for
the sake of this higher goal. If its a good enough principle for God,
it is a good enough principle for us to practice in all loving
relationships. I had to hurt Lavonne over and over again this past week. I
rubbed her damaged muscle to fight the inflammation. It was
painful, but I did it willingly, for I knew it was the only way to get
her back to health. Pain was the necessary path to pleasure. I hurt
her on purpose for the sake of a positive goal. That was why Paul
was in prison, and that is why a lot of negative things happen in life
to all of us. The path of pain can lead to pleasure for those who wait
to see where the path will lead.
Dr. Reuben Youngdahl, of Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church in
Minneapolis, tells of his experience on a world tour. He was
enjoying the white sands of the Indian Ocean at Durham, South
Africa. He gave no thought to sunburn until it was too late, and he
looked like a lobster. He was so sick in the night he considered going
to the hospital. He had to spend the rest of his time there sitting in
the shade watching others have fun. The day of his great suffering
was the day the blue-battle fish infested the shore waters, and with
their stingers sent over 1000 swimmers to the hospital. 150 were
poisoned serious enough to be hospitalized. Several almost died. He
could have been one, and so he realized that his misfortune was also
his good fortune. His pain saved him from worse pain, or even
death.
President Theodore Roosevelt lived before bifocals were invented.
The result was he had to carry two pairs of glasses with him. One
was for near vision, and the other for far vision. In his last
campaign he was shot when he was in Milwaukee. The surgeon who
examined his wound handed him his steel spectacle case and said
that the bullet hit this case, and it was deflected from your heart,
and saved your life. The president took the case with its shattered
spectacle and said, I've always considered the burden and handicap
of having to carry these two pairs of glasses, especially these heavy
ones that were in this case, as a very sore one, and here at last they
have been the means of saving my life." It was a long wait to see any
good from that negative reality, but in the long run it turned out that
his burden was a blessing.
Arturo Toscanini, the famous orchestra conductor, hated being
handicapped with his near sightedness. At nineteen he was playing
the cello in an orchestra, but he could not see the music on the stand,
so he had to work harder than anyone, and memorize the music.
One day the orchestra leader became ill, and suddenly Toscanini
was the only member of the orchestra who knew the score. So he
conducted it without the score, and got great responses from the
audience. Had he not been near sighted he never would have been
ready for this opportunity that lead him to become one of the great
conductors of all time. The bad thing in his life became the best
thing in his life for his career.
Charles Spurgeon tells the true story of how lies can be used to
the glory of God. An evangelist was to preach in a small Italian
town back when there was a great deal of hostility between
Catholics and Protestants. The local priest told his people that this
man who was coming was a worshipers of the devil. This scared
many, and so they stayed away, but one depraved soul was
interested in devil worship, so he went to hear the man. Nothing
could have gotten him there but this lie. But when he came and
heard of Jesus, the devil's conqueror, he became a convert to Jesus
rather than the devil he was going to seek. God used a lie to bring
this man to Jesus.
The point is not, that liars are good, or handicaps, or other bad
things are of value. The whole negative aspect of a fallen world is
just that-negative. It is bad, and not good, for it would all be taken
into the eternal kingdom if it was good. But the fact is, it is all
eliminated. We are calling black white, or evil good, for all bad
things are bad. The point is, God is not limited to using good things
for His purpose. He can use bad things as well, and it is to be one of
the challenges of life to work with God to bring good out of evil.
What happened at Standard Oil is a good illustration in the
world of industry. After oil is refined, a greasy black liquid is a
waste product. They use to empty it at the river, but laws were
passed to stop that. Then they dug a pit to get rid of it, but that
failed. They tried to burn it, but that was almost a disaster. Finally,
in desperation, they called in chemists from all over the country, and
by accident they stumbled on to a way to make this massive nuisance
into paraffin. This became one of the most profitable products of
the refineries. This story is repeated in the history of dozens of
waste products.
The point being, what is true for things is true also for events.
Negatives, like the wastes of life and the bad events, can, by the
grace of God be transformed into valuable products and good
experiences. So don't waste anything in life, for what you feel is bad
and worthless can become your most treasured event. Charles
Kettering was cranking his car in the good old days, and it kicked on
him and broke his arm. He thought, this is terrible. There must be
an easier way to start a car. This painful event motivated him to go
and invent the self-starter that has saved millions of others from
suffering. One man's pain led to the greater pleasure of the masses.
That good can come out of evil does not mean there is nothing
difficult to bear in the evil. Paul lost his freedom and had to be
confined in chains and pay a heavy price for the good that came of
it. It was not free but costly to be used of God this way. It would be
just as hard, or even harder, however, if no good ever came of it.
The hard part is made easier in knowing good will be the end result.
Paul did eventually get executed, but he had all the joy of seeing the
good that was coming because of his suffering. This is not always the
case. The nuclear crisis at the reactor in Chernobyl is a good
example. Many people died in that crisis, but it forced doctors to
learn rapidly about the removal, treatment and transplant of bone
marrow. They had to act quickly, and they learned by trial and
error, but the end result was they learned what will benefit all
mankind. One of the doctors made this comment.
"We were like Star Trek. We were going
where mankind had never gone before,
but we were being dragged there reluctantly.
Now, as a result, we have a whole new way to
deal with an even cure cancer." The same
chaotic energy that killed so many at
Chernobyl may now result in a procedure
of donor and autologous bone marrow
transplants that will save thousands of lives.
This new order was born of loss and chaos.
So often in history terrible things for the few can be tremendous
benefits for the many. We are among the millions who are benefiting
from Paul's imprisonment. Because of it, we have all the wisdom of
this letter he wrote in prison. Paul suffered for your pleasure
and mine. God used the bad things Paul had to endure to give good
things to us. It is one of the ways of God in history to show that He
is in control even though man, by his sin and folly, is perpetually
doing evil and harmfully things. God is in the business of reversing
the effects of man's folly.
What we need to learn from all of this is not to jump to
conclusions, and write off bad experiences as total loss. Ask God to
help you use the bad as a stepping stone to some good. If God loves
to bring good out of evil, then don't waste evil, and let it be evil only,
but seek for ways it can lead to good. A most dramatic and radical
illustration of this comes from the diary of Ann Traylor, a servant
girl coming to America from England. She was raped on board the
ship. It was so devastating she wanted to die, but fortunately for her
a Quaker lady named Henrietta Best was there, and she had been
raped decades before by French soldiers. Now let's make this
clear-this was a totally evil experience-it was pure evil. But the
point is, it was not wasted, but used. Henrietta came to Ann and
used her evil experience to bring comfort to her. Ann wrote in her
diary-
"She could say to me, "Hush, it happened to me,
too." And those words saved my life and my
reason. What resurrected me, were her love
and her understanding, which, clearly, were
the fruit of her own suffering; she could identify
with me without pious pretense. When she
consoled me and took me in her arms, I experienced
the presence of God."
The evil of the past was still evil, and those who did it will be
judged, but good was brought out of the evil by a wise use of it. Had
Paul laid around his cell swearing at the guards, his evil experience
would not have been used for good. He had to be an impressive
witness to his joy in Christ in spite of his suffering, or he would have
seen no fruit from his evil experience. Bad things don't lead to good
by their nature. They only root like fruit and get worse. They can
only lead to good as we learn to use them wisely.
The point here is not to say let's all get arrested and see what
good can come of it. We are to avoid all evil, and try to prevent
every bad thing in life. But when we cannot, and we have to suffer
in this fallen world, let's not waste it, and jump to the conclusion
that it is of no value. Let's work with God, and seek to overcome
evil with good, and rob the devil of his pleasure. Robert Schuller in
his popular book, Life's Not Fair But God Is Good, deals with this
issue, and gives many marvelous illustrations. One is of Serena
Young, a Los Angeles Orthopedic Surgeon. As a two year girl in
Taiwan, this Chinese toddler contracted polio, and lost the use of
her legs. She was in and out of the hospital until she was 21, but
never regained the use of her legs.
She was a bitter young woman. She was angry at God for
allowing this to happen to her. She started to search in high school
for some way to make sense of this, which seems so senseless, and
this is what she discovered; Rom. 8:28, "And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have
called according to His purpose. "She wanted her handicap to be
used for good, and so she began to pray that God would use her
tragedy for something good. She stopped her grieving and accepted
her disability. She decided she wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon.
She was told that it was crazy, but she felt it was God's calling, and
though the training was so hard she wanted to quit at times.
She persevered, and now has a very fulfilling career helping
people deal with their handicaps. The Los Angeles Times had a
picture of her propped up on crutches leaning over an operating
table giving help and hope to others, who like her, had been dealt a
bad hand. She was not wasting her bad experience, but was using it
for good, and for the glory of God, whom she praises for helping her
see bad things can be used for His purposes. May God help us all
learn this lesson, and strive by God's grace to bring good out of evil.
