Principles to Remember in Crisis: God puts the good next to the bad in life

In today’s post we continue on Principles to Remember in Crisis. Today’s principle: God puts the good next to the bad in life, in no particular order.

Recently in the first post of this series, we revealed that the Apostle Paul provided two vital steps to persevere in trials or crisis. The first step, in a world with false teachers, false belief systems, and false hope, the Apostle reminds us to stand firm in what we know. The second step is to hold fast the traditions which we have been taught or learned from the Word. We simply identified those steps as: (1) Remember key principles and (2) Obey practical steps to encourage our perseverance.

This is our second principle to remember.

God puts the good next to the bad in life (Ecclesiastes 3:1-14; 7:13-18).

Life has many of what you would call, “Good days” and “Bad days.” Each one of us have experienced these. Just as we occasionally face a crisis situation, maybe like the one you are going through now, we also have experienced days when things have gone well, we got what we desired, or everything simply turned out. When we look at our life backwards, we see that, in fact, there are days when we did get the raise, all the lights were green, and the food was perfect. Of course, this list could go on for pages. However, when we also look backwards, we realize there are days when things did not go so well, we did not get the job, all the lights were red, and the food was a disaster. Again, this list is long. What you might call big ticket items go both ways as well. In my life, we have had five children born to us, four who have done very well health-wise, and one who died when she was only one month old.

Life is seasonal. Things change. The world’s wisest man to every live, outside of Jesus, explains it to us.

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven: (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

When you take the idea that life is seasonal, meaning many things happen to us and nothing stays the same. Just like spring follows winter and arrives before summer, life also changes continually. However, in life, the changes are not predictable like they are in the seasons. God puts the good next to the bad in life in any particular order. The same author, Solomon, makes it crystal clear in the following verses:

Consider the work of God;
For who can make straight what He has made crooked?
In the day of prosperity be joyful,
But in the day of adversity consider:
Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other,
So that man can find out nothing that will come after him.

I have seen everything in my days of vanity:

There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness,
And there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness.

Do not be overly righteous,
Nor be overly wise:
Why should you destroy yourself?
Do not be overly wicked,
Nor be foolish:
Why should you die before your time?
It is good that you grasp this,
And also not remove your hand from the other;
For he who fears God will escape them all. (Ecclesiastes 7:13-18)

Notice how Solomon makes it clear that life is cyclical. It rains on both the believer and non-believer. There are, in fact, good days and bad days – and that for every person. Those good days and bad days happen in no particular order.

One step further, just following Christ does not make you immune from life’s difficulties, just as wickedness does not forfeit you from receiving great blessings of God’s common grace. For example, righteous people occasionally fail in business when wicked people succeed. As I mentioned out of my own personal story, sometimes even pastors have children die, where as very evil people may have no difficulties with having children at all.

Solomon teaches us this principle: God arranges life in this way to encourage believers to trust in Him. It is impossible to guess the next thing that will happen in life. Will it be a good day or bad day, as we perceive it? We do not know nor can we guarantee it.

In this predicament of not knowing, God’s goal for the believer is to live life everyday considering Him, His Word, His desires, and His plans. God desires for us to trust Him with what is in our day – on very good days, very bad days, and all the range of days between. We cannot know what is next in God’s plan; we embrace them as they come and realize they are only seasonal.

Therefore in the midst of crisis, it is impossible to formulate a “reason” for a particular thing happening; instead, the energy used to seek for reasons should be refocused on responding to the crisis according to God’s Word.

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