All Things Work for Good

Willow, my six-year-old granddaughter, came to her Mum the other day and stated, “I don’t need to do swimming anymore.” Willow and her older sister who is nearly ten had been doing swimming lessons for over a year because their mother and father thought it was a good skill to learn. Her Mum, surprised, said, “And why is that?”

“I don’t want to be a lifesaver, so I don’t need to have any more swimming lessons.” Willow replied. “Don’t you like swimming  anymore?” her Mum enquired.

“I do enjoy it but I am not going to swim in deep water or rescue people because there is sharks in the water.” Said Willow.

Mum replied, hiding a smile, “We don’t learn swimming to just be a lifesaver. You don’t need to become one. We swim for enjoyment and so we can swim in pools and at the beach.”

It is interesting how little Willow’s mind worked. Maybe she had seen something on TV or heard something that brought her to the conclusion she had. But she had not seen the whole picture or had a full understanding of why she should participate in the swimming lessons.

It made me question – Are we any different? Do we not come to the wrong conclusions sometimes about people, about circumstances, about even our God and His ways? Following a train of thought that is not quite accurate or brings us to the wrong conclusions. We do not have the big picture of life that God has for us. We sometimes see difficulties as punishment from a God who is not loving us right now. We often don’t see that “All things work for Good….”

St Ignatius of Loyola was a vain young soldier who thought highly of himself.  He had his life planned out to conquer the world and be sought after by the popular girls. It was all about himself. God had a different plan for him. He was injured in battle where he needed to convalesce at his aunt’s house. His leg was shattered by a cannon ball. And so, his planned life of conquering the world in battle as a soldier and getting the honours due him was ruined. As it so happened he was lying on the couch for weeks, bored with his own company, in a library filled with religious books and the Bible. So out of boredom he started reading the life of Jesus and His disciples. These stories made him happy and aroused desires to do great things. He realized how vain and self-centred he had become, and that God was directing him and guiding him to live differently. Ignatius decided to travel to Jerusalem where Jesus had lived, and the story of his conversion had begun.

Ignatius thought the only way he was going to get acknowledgement from his peers and those of importance in society was to be a hero in the army.

God wanted him to be a hero another way.

We do not know the mind of God for us, unless we ask Him and then we often get it wrong. But know that God has a perfect plan for our lives and wants us involved in that plan, in that decision making.

Ignatius was not a puppet. He came to his own conclusions by God’s guiding hand but had to go through the scarring and damage of his leg to see with different eyes. To see a different plan for his life. A better plan.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What are some of the things in your life that didn’t work out as you had planned? How did God bring good out of them?

What are some of the current plans in your life that you need to entrust to God?