Good, Bad, Who Knows

A farmer lived alone with his grandson. One day their only horse ran away. The people came by and said, “Oh, what bad luck.” The farmer replied, “Bad luck, good luck, who knows.” A few weeks later the horse returns leading a small herd of wild horses into the corral. The people came by and said, “Oh, what good luck.” The farmer replied, “Good luck, bad luck, who knows.” The grandson went out to tame one of the wild horses. The horse threw him to the dirt and he broke his arm. The people came by and said, “Oh, what bad luck.” The farmer replied, “Bad luck, good luck, who knows.” The next day the commander of the military came by conscripting all able-bodied young men for war. He saw the grandson and passed him by. The people came by and said, “Oh, what good luck.” The farmer replied, “Good luck, bad luck, who knows.”

One of our confounding tendencies is to judge our circumstances before they have played themselves out. Our intolerance of unpleasantness rushes us to label matters with good or bad simply based on how we see things in that moment and how the moment feels.

Anyone can take a day and divide it into segments, then evaluate that day by one of those segments. If we like what goes on during that fragment we label the day as good. If we don’t like what goes on, it’s a bad day. Obviously, that’s quite a small-minded approach to life. Allowing one incident so much power over us that it can, in fifteen seconds, ruin fifteen hours of a day is highly irresponsible.

We are rarely in the best position to judge whether something is good or bad. We’re too personally involved. Only when we can detach and trust the One who has perspective can we release ourselves from the burden of preference. Only God knows what we’re going through. We don’t. We know the moment. We know how we feel about it, but we don’t know where it’s taking us or how it fits into the larger context of what God wants to accomplish in our life.

Faith requires us to trust He is working all things together for good at all times—not sometimes or under rare occasions. I don’t have to like it, but it will benefit me greatly if I will acknowledge that He is good and His mercy endures forever. He knows the beginning and the end of all things. He knows the why and why not. He defines the good.

When I step aside as judge and yield that role to Him, I’m free to concentrate on remaining faithful.