Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

We learned yesterday that everything that happens is for a reason and that reason will have a good outcome for us in some way. If that is so then what is truly bad? If even bad things can turn out good then good and evil become subjective until we understand the whole story. We all carry battle wounds and scars that tell a sad story. The scar shows we got through the wound or ordeal and we have proof that things heal and get better. Moreover, if we truly trust who He says He is we come out strengthened in our faith. Therein lies the problem; trusting God that He has our best interest at hand. Especially when we’ve had to endure a struggle.

Disobedience can kill all the good in our life in an instant. There is a cost to being free will human beings and I wonder if we often count the cost of that before we set out to do a thing? We learned in day one of this teaching that when Adam and Eve sacrificed their self for the self image they distanced themselves from the reach of the Father. Not that He couldn’t reach them but that He honors our choices. They now could honestly say they had knowledge of good, the time with God, and evil the time when they determined to take matters into their own hands and edge God out. Disobedience, defiance, or an act outside of love removes the presence of good in our life and we delve head first into the dark, bad places of where life can take us. In this condition we become like hardened clay unable to mold into any possibility of hope. In this condition we find all sorts of evil that ultimately proves to destroy our soul. This is where victim thinking comes in, this is where despair comes in, this is where we meet depression, despondency, despair. This is the place where hope is lost.

You see, outside of the boundaries of God we live an unprotected life. Yet, I believe that all of us truly know that this sort of lifestyle feels good to the flesh for awhile. We’ve all put our toe in the water of evil and felt the warmth of the water there as it invited us in. Some of us dove straight in and swam around for a time, while others of us cautiously took the steps one by one. Either way we have knowledge of what it feels like. Only, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We noticed that we were swimming around with hungry sharks that were taking us apart piece by piece. Some of us still don’t see the chunks missing and we continue on. Some of us choose to ignore the fact that we are being devoured and pretend as if all is well.

In this place of darkness we begin to live in fear. When conviction comes we question whether the others swimming with us will still like us? We begin to feel entitled to live in debauchery and we call it our right. We relish the power of living our lives our way and we take free will to a level it was never intended to go. Then when the bottom falls out and we no longer have any options left, we ask God why he allowed us to go so far? Why has He betrayed us?

It becomes a matter of trusting that God is really good because we’ve seen so much evil we can’t conceive that there is One who is trustworthy. Besides, it is much easier to blame someone else for our own choices.

Matthew 18:3. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.