Good Things

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  William Shakespeare

There is nothing good or bad, only when we think it so? Hmmm…. William Shakespeare talks a lot of sense, but this I am not so sure about.

What if you were in a traffic accident and by no fault of your own you ended up in hospital?  What if you lost your job as a result?  What if someone you love more than your next breath died?  What if you get so tired that your get up and go is just plain gone?  Surely these kind of catastrophes are what we think they are? Bad.

What if we help a friend move house, or take them dinner every day when they are sick?  What if something that we have been dreaming about, praying for, finally happens?  What if we get a promotion, or a better car?  Good things one and all.

Here’s something to think about. You are walking briskly through a hallway toward a shut door; the only exit from a building you need to get out of.  The door has a big red sign on it, the sign tells you in no uncertain terms that:

There are no stairs outside this door.  You must jump.

What do you picture on the other side, maybe an easy jump onto soft grass or a precipitous hurl yourself into the dark unknown kind of exit followed by a nasty landing?  Is your jump going to be a good thing or a bad thing?

I used to carry a picture of a run down old shack in my head.  It was a picture of how I felt about my life.  Even though I could count out many good things about my past and present, for the future all I could see was this run down old shack.  I couldn’t seem to leave that building and even if I had found the door, I would have found darkness on the other side.

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.  Only those items which I notice shape my mind.” William James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1

What if rather than looking for the exit, finding another door shut, worrying about the darkness, fearing the unknown, what if we choose to find peace where we are, knowing that the doors, the darkness, the things we cannot know - these things are all His.

His life in all our good and bad.  His gift through our loss. His peace that speaks calm to our chaos. His way out of the shadows into the light.

‘Worry, like a rocking chair, will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.’  Vance Havner, a man who learned to trust God despite the death of his father, the violent destruction of his family business, and an illness that brought him to the point of death.

It is easy for us to categorise the good and bad that make up our lives.  All the good one side, all the bad another.  And yet we can chose to look for the good in the bad, decide make peace with the memories or the rooms that have closed us in, hold out our hands to the darkness and find them held, maybe even take the door marked unknown and find Him there.

‘God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.’ 1John1 v5, NIV

He believes in you.

ClairesTeaParty just relocated 6761 airmiles from the UK to Singapore. She has also been asked to write a 50,000 word book in two months. No pressure then Consequently, she will be blogging intermittently until she’s at least 35,000 words in. Please pray for me. Thanks so much for stopping by, it’s better with you here xxx

Tagged as: bad things, Claire Vorster, claires tea party, Encouragement, fear of the unknown, God is light, good things, Inspiration, light, love, overcoming darkness, worry