“In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other...”
(Ecc. 7:14)
As I have often written, life can be so simple yet at the same time so perplexing; truly it is paradoxical. This is one reason the carnal mind has such a problem with the Bible. They try to reconcile one extreme truth from the other at the far end of the spectrum. But friends need not be reconciled. They sit across from one another at the same table, smiling at each other.
God has ordained that both sadness and gladness should make up life. The blessings to make us happy, the burdens to make us humble. Just when we experts think we have the answers to these two seemingly contradictions, the Lord changes the situation; and out goes our formula. As another has said, “You can’t use an outdated road map for a new journey.”
Don’t try to understand the good days and bad days separately; deal with them together. That is what Romans 8:28 is all about. Whether God gives us a sweet cup or a bitter cup we’re to ”Drink ye all of it.” Don’t attempt to make the bitter sweet; take life as it comes. When joyful, be joyful; when sad, be sad. Don’t try to pretend things aren’t the way they are.
James tells us Job is to be our example in this. You’ll remember Job told his wife they were not only to take the good from God’s hand but the unpleasant things. God has intermingled them. Like day and night and summer and winter, each offsets the other. I like the way Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) put it, “O, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus.”
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