Blessing Bad

In the AMC television series, "Breaking Bad," mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher, Walter White thinks life can hardly get worse with his salary barely covering the bills, his wife getting pregnant as they struggle caring for a teen with cerebral palsy when he is diagnoses with terminal cancer.

As the burdens of life pile up, Walter is weighed down to the breaking point wherein he chooses to turn an old RV into a meth lab on wheels in order to make as much money as he can so he can provide for his family both as he comes to his end and beyond.

Experiencing a number of bad breaks, Walter breaks bad himself and chooses a path that winds up costing him the family that he sought to protect and provide, while turning him into a criminal he never dreamed he would be and hating his life in a way he never imagined.

It is easy to sympathize with Walter's struggle and hard not to applauded his efforts to provide for his family, regardless of the fact that we know how wrong producing such a terrible drug to be released into society actually is and the hurt it causes to others.   There is a sense that he is simply being swept away by forces beyond his control.  Seriously, how can one blame him?

Well, I can't blame him for circumstances beyond his control or his feeling of being overwhelmed and backed into a corner.  But he is responsible for his decision to hang on to his bad fortune, compounding it with bad choices that lead him in a spiraling down pattern of destruction instead of offering them up to God who "...works for the good of those who love him..." (Rom 8:28).

Paul isn't promising that God insures that only good things and good outcomes happened to his children but he is saying that God can bring good out of terrible loss, pain and suffering.  His promise  assures us that far from being the end, that suffering can be groundwork of a new beginning as we "...glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame..." (Rom 5:3-5)

I know what it is like to face a future where there appears to be no way to continue, nothing but loss on the horizon.  I know what it is like to lose my home, my business, my savings, my personal property and even my wife - everything; everything, that is, except my faith in God and his goodness.

Do I understand why it happened?  No, not really.  I do understand how.  But ore importantly, I understand Who, Who it was and is that stands by me, giving me strength and making a way in the  providing "songs in the night" (Ps 77:6).

Here's the point: While we may not know how or even agreed with what God allows, God is in the business of blessing bad - of making good come out of the ashes of evil.  Whatever it is that you are going through, do not choose to go it alone, taking matter in your own hands.  Go with God, and allow him to bless the bad instead of you turning from the good.  Jus' Say'n.