It was Morgan’s birthday. A really awesome young lady with an extremely bright future and quite frankly, a bright present.
I wanted to send her a birthday greeting on Facebook. Here is a copy and pasted version of the greeting. I really hope she doesn’t mind. My guess? She won’t.
“Happy Birthday Morgan. Do me a favor, if you get a chance sometime during the day, re-read Psalm 139. In there you will be reminded as to how much care God took in creating you individually and specifically. You have both physical and spiritual DNA.
And in verses :13 – :16 you will see how God knew all of your days from beginning to end before any of them were recorded. He knew all the people your life would touch including the life of the Hembree family.
God has a special purpose for you. And the good stuff and all the bad stuff you have experienced goes into a big pile of God stuff that he uses to touch other people and their life.
However big you are already thinking for your life, think much, much bigger.
John” (End of message)
Later this afternoon one phrase of that message kept coming back to my mind, “the good stuff and the bad stuff”.
We each have both.
And God uses both of them, the good stuff and the bad stuff.
In fact, what value would our life have if we only received the good stuff? It’s the good stuff we want but it is often the bad stuff that makes us who we are.
A verse you have often heard but may have forgotten.
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28
All things work together for good.
Take a sheet of paper and draw three equally divided lines vertically on the page. Then make a column headed with the words, “Good Stuff”, then a column headed with the words, “Bad Stuff”, then a column headed with the words, “God Stuff”.
List from your life some wonderful things that have happened to you or that you have experienced. Then in the next column list beside the good stuff, some things that have happened that have been just flat awful, the worst things. Do not sugarcoat it. Lay it out there.
Then in the last column marked “God Stuff” use your creative imagination to see how God might use the first column and the second column together to form results in the final column. Mix and match the lines once you get rolling.
The key is to realize that God takes the good stuff and the bad stuff from our lives and forms the God stuff.
Why does He do this? So that you can relate to others and have credibility with those you come in contact with. When the other person’s life is coming apart and their heart is being torn out of their body it feels like, you have a treasure chest of experiences to share with them and you will be able to show them how God takes the good stuff and the bad stuff to form the God stuff. The stuff that will last. The stuff that others can benefit from knowing and seeing active in an otherwise broken life.
Allow the good and the bad to be reflective in your life. God will take care of the rest.
JHH
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