Can Bad Be Mistaken For Good When You’re Down Low?

Then there are other times, as gifted as you and I are, there are circumstances in the ‘real low moments’ that gives rise to the occasion of you questioning yourself in a way that denotes fear rather than faith that goes something like this, “how can someone as gifted as I am go through such kind of hell?” “why do bad things always seem to happen to good people?” “Why would God allow this to happen to me?” “Is it possible that all the hell that I am going through, one thing after another, that this is what God has planned and this is my purpose for my life?”

You take several glances back at the mountain top you were just on. Meanwhile God is silent! And I mean silent! You hear nothing! You feel helpless! No one else has the answers, because you find yourself not being able to even explain exactly what is really going on with you. If you are not careful, it is in these moments of being down real low that bad begins to look good and you mistake the process for your purpose in life.

Speaking in the first person, I will be very honest with you and tell you that I personally do not like the process of what God put me through at times. I really don’t! I’ve had those moments where I try to reason it out with Him. I cry, I feel numb with the pain while expressing my heart’s desire that it be made different, if not easier. When God brought me out of my Egypt, and brought me into the church thereby making me a part of His body, I did not ‘sign up’ in agreement to go through that kind of hell. But in retrospect, that is foolish of me to think in that way! If God spared not His only Son, but gave Him up as a living sacrifice for my sins and yours, where do I get the idea, that He would somehow set my trials, testing and tribulations to be any easier?

In my moment of ‘foolish reasoning’ and negative thinking, a woman of God and my very good friend Minister Shirley Moore, who had no idea whatsoever what I was going through sent me an email telling me, “God is working things out for you, even when you don’t feel like it. Have faith and be thankful.” She further wrote, “Don’t be mislead into thinking that we’re gonna break thru this barrier and come into this dimension of power and not have to go thru anything along the way! Don’t expect God to move all the devils out of your way. If Jesus had to fight His way thru and He was the only begotten Son of God….we might as well stop complaining, stop crying, stop worrying, stop being discouraged, roll up our sleeves, and say, alright -come on!! Stop being discouraged and fight the good fight of faith.”

What is the lesson that I wish for you to take away from my experience?

• When you’ve been down real low, bad begin to look good. It looks good because we’ve gone through so much in life in such short space of time. We’ve been inundated by what life has thrown at us that we begin to accept whatever comes our way now as the acceptable norn. Our rhetorical ramblings and musings of our past experiences leaves us with that feeling of inertia, that we cannot even appreciate, much less accept the real thing and the authentic good that God promised to give to us in Jeremiah 29: 11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

• When you are down low in the pit or going through a valley moment, it is never the right time to make a decision. Decisions we make today have life-long implications. We cannot go back then and reverse them or the choices we would have made. Some perhaps, but most are irreversible. Joseph could have chosen to retaliate against his brothers who threw him into the pit and who later on sold him into slavery, but he did not. He endured the process and ended up in the palace to rule over nations, including his brothers who did such evil to him. God Himself allow bad things so that He can demonstrate His power to bless you in a place where you had never even dreamed of! Joseph was able to show his brothers their folly by telling them, “you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” [Genesis 50:20]

• When you are vulnerable, you cannot trust your own judgement. God warns us never to get cocky and overconfident because that is a recipe for disaster. Realize your vulnerability. Have faith in God. Trust Him and never rely on your own understanding. [Proverbs 3:5-6] It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps, it is God. [Jeremiah 10:23]

• Avoid murmuring against divine disposals and commands of what God has allowed in your life. Murmuring is a sin that greatly provokes God especially when it is allowed to grow to such an extent as would lead to apostasy, idolatry, and a revolt from Him and His ways. [Exodus 32:9-10] Keep on running the race with patience and know that absolutely nothing shall separate us from God’s love for us. [Romans 8:35-39]