It’s the girl chucking you via text message.

 It’s you losing your job the same week your four year old is beginning kindergarten.

Life has a way of throwing us lemons. And sometimes we thinkwe won’t recover, but we do. Sometimes well enough to look back with gladness! 

The kitchen argument last night instead grows you closer. The doctor’s words change your prayer life. The failed job interview   brings you a new friend, even the job loss turns out to mean “more time with family.”

But that’s not we see often, uh? We are pilgrims weeping over the trivial, commuters arguing over which TV Channels to watch on the bus.More concerned about the journey than the destination.

Naked we came, naked we shall leave (Job 1:21). Yet we still argue over pieces of land (as if our casket will occupy an entire plot)

Yet our God has a different plan altogether.

“All things (good and bad things) work together for thosewho love him and are called according to his purposes “– and we like to stopt here- but listen to the next line.

“For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the “likeness of his son” (Rom 8-28-29)

There is his goal – “likeness of his son”

But how many of us see our opportunities and failures as a tool of “making us more like his son?”.

I see why no hand is up, because we rarely think of our lows as a goal towards Christlikeness.

There goes something to think about.

Something to think about when your doctor lifts his pen and starts explaining, something to think about when the rejection email comes ,when your employment  calls are not returned or when your ATM  is beginning to get dusty. Something to think about in the hospital hallway or near the funeral van.

We are not the end, God’s purposes are.