Our theology affects how we view every experience in life. What we believe to be true about God paints our entire world and all aspects of our thinking. For example, if we believe God to be a wise old white haired grandfather who floats around the universe passing out lollipops to all the good little boys and girls, we will be decimated when the first set of difficult circumstances hit our lives. On the other hand, if we believe God to be a distant watchmaker who did all the initial work of building our universe, wound up the process and left, we will be unable to connect to Him or His work in any personal way.

But if we believe that the immortal, immutable, all powerful God is also GOOD and everything He does is indeed GOOD, it will change the way we engage life. Our theology settles so many matters. Believing that God is ultimately always seeking the GOOD of His children allows us to trust. It allows us to trust even when the circumstances of the moment (or season) make that very difficult. When we are confident that God’s kids are being cared for with a GOOD eternal purpose in mind, we can engage life with enthusiasm and joy.

I was recently sharing this thought with a friend and I was doing so in a content of my own personal and professional life. I was saying that my theology allows me to know without a shadow of doubt that God is able. He is able to care for my needs and will provide for them in straightforward and not so straightforward ways. My job is to trust and maintain my attitude of joy in the meantime. But I also was honest about how hard it is sometimes to do just that. We need God to work on our behalf, but sometimes it is very tough to wait on Him. The waiting gets stinky!

And then she shared this true story. It seems that her Godly parents had a major downturn in their business. In order to keep things afloat, the parents had leveraged their house, their vacation home, their RV, everything. And as the business collapsed, they lost it all. Apparently the adult kids scraped about $7000 together in order to buy them an old, rather run down mobile home. The previous owner had passed away and it would only require a monthly space rental fee that they could hopefully handle.

After a bit, a life insurance bill came due. The husband did not want to leave his wife without some protection and felt that the insurance was essential. But there was simply no money to use. So he recommitted his efforts in prayer. He said he was going to rub holes in the carpet asking God to meet their need for this policy.

As these days of intense praying and trusting went by, an ugly odor began to emanate from the mobile home. Each day it got worse until they finally had to start peeling back layers of walls and floor boards to find the source of the horrible stench. As they wrenched back a floor board, they found the problem. There was a dead possum wedged under the home. There was the problem. But right next to the problem was a rusty old ammo can.

They got rid of the rotten corpse and then pulled up the ammo can. Yep, you guessed it…it was filled with thousands of dollars. It was much more than what was needed for the insurance policy.

This week, let’s be firm in our conviction that our God is GOOD. Let’s ruminate on the truth of Psalm 34:8, “Taste and see that the Lord is GOOD, blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him,” and remember, there may be an ammo can lying next to your dead possum!

By His Grace and for His Glory,
Sherry L. Worel