The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

They warned me I would see this...

I remember sitting down with people who had been in ministry and they told us that we would see it all....the good, the bad and the ugly.

And of course I, who tends to live in an imaginary bubble thought..."oh, we won't see any bad or ugly."

Wrong!

What I can say though is that the good far outweighs the bad. We have been blessed in so many ways. I remember Janet Jones telling us that people would do things for us that we could never dream of. She wasn't kidding. We have done some amazing things just in the past 6 months and God has opened doors that we have been knocking on for years...it was just His timing.

God is good all of the time and even in the midst of trial I need to remember to stay focused and not get discouraged or not to get mad or not to get upset or whatever...just to keep on keeping on...I know that He will bring good out of every trial that we are facing...no matter how bad or how ugly.

Sometimes these bad and ugly situations can consume me to the point where I really have to turn it over to God...otherwise I become a slave to them (2 Peter 2:19).

Last week I woke up with the phrase W.W.J.D. in my mind. How would Jesus handle this situation? And then I started thinking about sitting down with Jesus in a job interview type setting and I started imagining all of these questions being thrown at me and him saying, "you know, I know how you are doing by your fruits but let's talk about them anyway..."

I love that parable about the fruits.... I love Matthew 7.

Right then and there, I knew I need to take the plank out of my eye and move on from there.

So.....

I must be patient. This too shall pass. Not everything is going to be as I hope or plan. Not everyone is going to like me. In fact, some things might be down right disappointing and sad and people will let me down. But that is life and thankfully we are fully equipped to deal with the good, the bad and the ugly.

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. 2 Tim 3:16-17 NLT