Good things often come from bad circumstances.

Suppose you could Choose Your Own Adventure for your life today.

Would you choose a day that was difficult but ultimately led to you becoming a better, happier person?

Or would you choose a day that was relatively easy and didn’t lead to that kind of growth?

Alas, we don’t get to choose these things, do we? A hundred factors combine to give us a day that ranges on a spectrum from really simple to really difficult.

The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.
_Proverbs 17:3

It’s pressure and fire that makes something valuable even MORE valuable through a process of purification.

God puts our hearts through fire. And one way he does it is through terrible days and crappy situations – NOT because he likes to see us suffer but because he likes to see us AWESOME and refined.

If GOD is willing to let us have bad days because it leads to us becoming more pure and valuable, maybe we shouldn’t routinely say, “Have a good day!” Maybe lots of good days are the last thing we need.

Morose? Yes. Depressing? Maybe. Realistic? Seemingly.

What DO you wish people if you don’t wish them a good day? Manners are a matter of custom and that makes it tough to change. We’ll probably say, “Have a good day” to people until we die. But it may be that with our close friends or even in our hearts, we can wish happiness for people – that God would give them happiness by whatever means it takes – whether good or bad – and lead that person’s daily path closer to that of happiness.

Because most of us would rather suffer a while now and be happy a lot later than to just always live an easy life. I’ve never heard a fairy tale about a guy lounging around the pool each day eating Cool Ranch Doritos and having everything go his way. The story we identify with is the one where everything goes terribly wrong and the protagonist comes out on top in the end – with a better life and a better heart than he had before.

If you’re down on your luck right now, don’t give up. Your circumstances aren’t merely problems you need to go away. Enduring them may well be the way you end up happier than you could’ve ever imagined. It often takes bad days to get us good days.

Comments RSS