When I was a little girl, my grandma used to read me a book called 'Alexander and the Terrible,Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". The story chronicled the day of a little boy (Alexander). One can surmise from the title that it wasn't the best of days for poor Alexander...in fact it was well...you read the title ;o) Without even having read the book, I'm certain that most of us can relate to the way that little boy felt. Have you ever had a bad day? I mean a really bad day...a crumple up & cry kind of day? The kind of day in which every thing & everyone is irritating...when a snarl replaces your smile? The kind of day when everything that could go wrong does...and any semblance of a godly demeanor flies out the window? The kind of day in which you're certain that Abba must have an odd sense of humor...or you're being punished for something? Those are the days when I am extremely grateful that all of you aren't flies on the wall, watching my bad attitude & temper tantrums that usually come with on such days.
Life has a way of getting really overwhelming. Little itty bitty molehills become mountains. Aggravations & hurt feelings become resentment & bitterness. Decisions needing to be made & obligations to be kept, back you into a corner leaving you feeling trapped. Time & finances leave you strained & stressed. Sickness plagues the ones you love. A hundred people tug you in a hundred different directions. Everyone needs something, but no one asks what they can do for you. The only aisle at Walmart that doesn't have a billion people in it is the 10 item & under line. Some jerk tailgates you the whole way through town, passes you, only to turn 5 seconds later...The kiddos are clingy, whiny, & snotty...all of which is all over you. I know I'm not alone here...I'm not the only one who sometimes has to decide between bursting out into laughter (that borderlines insanity) or tears. Bad days happen...Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days happen. There was a guy in the Bible who had one of those days (lots of those days)...days worse than we could ever dream of!
Once upon a time there was a man named Job. Job was a good guy...a really good guy. He was also rich. Job honored The Lord, lived righteously, & God blessed him...but then Job had a bad day. A REALLY bad day...the kinda day that makes my bad day look like vacation. In the course of 1 day Job lost all of his livestock (11,500 oxen, sheep, donkeys, camels), his servants were murdered, & ALL 10 of his children died...like I said, a really bad day...a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. Just when things couldn't get any worse, they did. Job broke out from head to toe in sores...nasty, itchy, oozy sores. The only thing he could do was go sit out on an ash pile & scrap his sores with broken pottery (told ya it was a bad day). He was miserable...rightfully so...so miserable that suicide was an immense temptation. Shoot, even his wife wanted him to just curse God & die...but he didn't. Job's buddies come along, hoping to encourage him & console him, but alas that was a wee bit frustrating to a man who'd lost everything. Understandably, Job became angry...with his wife, with his friends, with God. He'd lost so much, was hurting so terribly that he wanted nothing more than to see his pitiful life end...but it didn't. Job began to get cranky (okay cranky might be too tame a word),He began to get bitter. It just didn't make sense. Why would God allow a good man suffer? In the midst of his misery, he began to have one heck of a pity party. Job began to ask questions, & God obliged in giving the answers. In the end The Lord restored Job to full health & He blessed him twice as much as he'd been blessed before. As if this story isn't interesting enough, behind the scenes we know that God allowed that bad day to happen to Job. God allowed everything Job possessed, everything he loved, & even his dignity to be stripped away. He allowed Job to be tested. God permitted that REALLY bad day...that terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.
One of the great quandaries of men (& women) is why/how a GOOD God allows BAD things to happen...especially to good people. This question & this doubt of God's goodness is often the excuse to refusing faith. I get it. It's hard to comprehend...when those bad days come, & we are up to our eyeballs in the quicksand of life it's hard to grasp why God allows it to happen. Beyond those molehill turned mountains, beyond those bad days & into true suffering...Sickness & Death, Abuse & Murder...we have to wonder why such evil exists & is allowed by a GOOD God. So often in these moments we shake our fists at Him & demand to know WHY...which is exactly what Job asked God...and believe me Abba had an answer. Before I share His answer, I want to make one thing clear, especially to nonbelievers who use this questioning of God's goodness as a reason not to believe & not to follow Him...God is GOOD. He has always been & will always be GOOD. God created a world & a man that were good & perfect. He gave that man free will & the ability to make choices.
Deuteronomy 30:19 "Today I have given you the choice between life & death, between blessings & curses. Now I call on heaven & earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you & your descendants might live!"
That man CHOSE to sin, & that action wrought grave repercussions. In that moment of selfish disobedience sin, sickness, & evil entered the world & have been here ever since. Bad things happen not by God's choice, but by man's.
Romans 5:12 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-"
If we are completely honest, even though that's uncomfortable & convicting, we'd have to admit that the vast majority of our 'bad days' happen because of our poor choices, or the poor choices of someone else impacting us. If I choose to rack up credit card bills, is God to blame for my being overworked & having to live paycheck-to-paycheck? It's my fault not His. If an innocent person is killed because a man drove under the influence, was that God's doing? A man chose to drink...He chose to drive, & someone else was impacted by that choice. Those choices were made by man not God. You & I are to blame. You & I make choices, good ones & bad ones, & those choices have consequences or rewards. We've got to stop taking all the credit for the rewards, & we've got to stop shaking our first at God when we suffer consequences. There are most certainly bad things that happen that are beyond our control; cancer, disease, & death...those things are byproducts of living in this fallen world...they did not exist before man chose to sin. So why does God allow it? Why does He allow innocent people to suffer from an evil man's choices? Why does He allow bad things, the results of no choice at all, to happen?
That brings us full circle, back around to our buddy Job who had the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. Job asked WHY to God...here's God's answer, summarized, paraphrased, & in layman's terms: "Who do you think you are to assume that you can understand everything that God almighty understands? Where were you when I created the heavens & the earth...the seasons & the flow of the tides? Where were you when I created life? I have a plan, but it's far beyond your capacity to understand." PLEASE read Job 38-40 to read God's response in it's entirety...it is such a strong answer. That answer, summed up, sounds insensitive, it sounds rude, but friends that couldn't be further from the truth. Those 2 chapters & that answer so fully describe God's splendor, His greatness, His perspective. It allows one to see just how big God is & just how small we are. It allows us to understand that all along God wanted us to have a choice, hence free will, to CHOOSE to love Him...to CHOOSE to have believe that He had a plan & could see the big picture, even if we cannot...that friends is the picture of Faith. Job got angry. Job became bitter, but Job never lost his faith. He never cursed God, & God blesses his faithfulness. Friends, it's okay to get angry. It's okay to not understand. It's okay to ask why, & it's okay to have bad days. In the depth of despair, we must hang on to faith. We must trust that He allows it for a reason.
There is a theory called Binary Opposition that says that for someone to wholly & fully grasp a concept, she/he must have an extreme opposite with which to compare it. For example: I can't fully appreciate the sunshine & warmth of Summer without the dark & cold of Winter. I can't fully feel joy without having felt sorrow. Because of this evil world I can grasp more fully God's Goodness. In line with this thought process, how would I know whether my faith is genuine?The only way to know true faith is by how it reacts when adversity comes. If life was easy peasy, then it would take precious little faith, but because of struggles & weakness we NEED Him...Faith is proven genuine by the bad times & our reactions to them.
My hope in all of this is that we would reconsider our terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days. I hope that we will keep the frustrating days in perspective compared with those days that are TRULY bad. I hope that we will count our blessings on the bad days instead of seeing only the curses. I hope that we will think of Job, & be reminded of just how Big our God is & just how small we are. I hope that we will take responsibility for choices that yield bad days...rather than blaming God & accusing Him of being less than Good. Lastly I hope that we will see that by enduring one extreme, we can be more fully appreciative of the other end of the spectrum. God is Good, All the Time....please remember this is only a brief explanation of why Bad things happen, we could go much further in depth if needed. Be Blessed!
Psalm 107:1 "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
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