Good Out Of Evil Series

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.