We don’t consider the low point of the see-saw ride to be evil and the high point good, do we? Its obvious that the cycle is a simultaneous movement in both directions at the same time. Where did we get the idea that the same process that moves us experientially has a good and evil side? Let me tell you a short tale to illustrate how good a bad experience can be.
Once upon a time there was a man who was so punctual and dependable he was almost famous for it. He had a set routine in the morning that he never deviated from. When he drove to work he invariably stopped at an intersection at precisely the moment an equally faithful bus driver arrived there on the cross street. He entered the office at 7:49 every working day for ten years. Then one morning he awoke to the horror that his alarm failed to sound and he was going to be late!! Oh, this was bad…very bad. As he rushed hopelessly to get ready the feeling in his gut would give him no peace. How could this happen? My perfect record ruined! This is terrible…bad, bad bad! He left the house nearly a half hour late, cursing himself and his alarm clock all the way. When he reached the intersection with the 4-way stop all his petty thoughts of failure fled from his mind. There in the middle of the intersection was the tangled remains of two cars and the bus which collided when one of the cars ran the stop sign. “That would have been me,” he thought.
Do you suppose, at that point, he still thought oversleeping was bad, bad, bad? I’d say it suddenly changed to good, good, good…at least for him. How many times has that happened in your life? A disappointing turnout of some broken dream that later on saved your life, or your finances, or maybe your sanity. In most cases you’ll never know what blessings your problems lead to. You may as well take every experience as the best thing that could happen to you.
Another similar tale follows the adventures of a man who had two things he loved with all his heart: his son and a prized Arabian mare. One day the mare ran away and the man was devastated. The next day the mare returned with a beautiful stallion. Now the man experienced the heights of elation. But when his son rode the stallion he was thrown and broke his leg. Suddenly the father is once again in deep despair. A few days later, however, a battalion marches into the village taking every available man off to fight a war. The boy with the broken leg is left behind and the father’s grief turns once again to joy. There is, of course, no end to this story. The point is: Nothing in and of itself is good or evil. Nothing outside of you has the power to make you happy or sad, joyous or mad, but only what is inside you determines your state of being. It is the relationship of the parts to the whole that matters. But the whole, as we have already determined is immutably perfect. We can’t see the “Whole Picture” from a limited vantage point. Our challenge is to see the biggest picture we can, but to accept by faith that even what we can’t see is as it should be.