How do we determine the nature of what comes our way? Do we always know whether life´s circumstances can be called good or bad?

Your car breaks down and you are faced with a terrible inconvenience just before you had planned to take a road trip. But when you take the car in, the guy says, "Good thing you didn´t take this thing out on the road. Coulda caught fire."

Could God have been protecting you?

Your child decides not to follow your dreams, and she pursues interests that aren´t all that interesting to you. You wanted her to play basketball and run track. She wants to sing and play the oboe. You feel frustrated, but she excels and ends up with a scholarship in music.

Could God have been directing her?

Your extended family faces a conflict not of your making-and you get dragged into the middle of it. Your heart is broken by accusations that fly your way despite your innocence. Resolution is difficult and time-consuming, but peace is finally restored.

Could God have been preparing you for a ministry of empathetic support for others in troubled situations?

Sometimes it´s hard to see how God is working. His mysteries don´t always reveal their secrets to us. Our journey of the soul is often slowed or redirected by detours not of our own doing, and we wonder why. Yet as we travel those detours, perhaps God is showing us a new route for our lives.

If we declare those side trips to be bad without waiting to see God work, we´re telling Him that we don´t trust Him at all-that He doesn´t know what He´s doing.

The only way to make sure we learn, grow, and benefit from what seems to be bad is to keep trusting God in spite of our feelings-trusting that in His wisdom, what looks bad can be turned into something good. -Dave Branon