I have heard it said many, many times, "Everything is meant for good." It's simply not true. When they say God will never give you more than you can handle. If that is true, it means I must be some sort of superhuman, able to balance stacks of breakable worries that affect my day with the tips of my fingers. But I am just a man, just a person, I am breakable and I fail everyday. It is even harder when God says no.
As I have grown up, I have read story after story in the Bible about lives that matter. Very few of them were distinguished through any ease or comfort. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 1, Paul writes, "We were completely overwhelmed--beyond our strength--so that we even despaired of life." To me that proves that God gives us more than we can handle. But in the same instance He promises peace and life everlasting. God gives us more than we can handle in order to make us dependent on Him and His power and not our own. He doesn't "cause" things to happen to us but He will allow it to happen in order for us to grow and to learn so that we can assist others later in life therefore achieving the purpose for which He has intended us for. God knows everything that will ever happen to us. When we realize that and own it, then can we live in true freedom. All these things happen because of our Savior, He showed us that even suffering has a purpose. Paul goes on to say, "He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God." While God may say no to me when I ask for something I can relax in knowing the peace that my story will someday, somewhere, somehow help another who is going to go through the exact same circumstance.
So to answer my own question: Yes, everything God does and allows is always meant for good. We just have to be centered in Him and His will in order to see it.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 ESV
As I have grown up, I have read story after story in the Bible about lives that matter. Very few of them were distinguished through any ease or comfort. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 1, Paul writes, "We were completely overwhelmed--beyond our strength--so that we even despaired of life." To me that proves that God gives us more than we can handle. But in the same instance He promises peace and life everlasting. God gives us more than we can handle in order to make us dependent on Him and His power and not our own. He doesn't "cause" things to happen to us but He will allow it to happen in order for us to grow and to learn so that we can assist others later in life therefore achieving the purpose for which He has intended us for. God knows everything that will ever happen to us. When we realize that and own it, then can we live in true freedom. All these things happen because of our Savior, He showed us that even suffering has a purpose. Paul goes on to say, "He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God." While God may say no to me when I ask for something I can relax in knowing the peace that my story will someday, somewhere, somehow help another who is going to go through the exact same circumstance.
So to answer my own question: Yes, everything God does and allows is always meant for good. We just have to be centered in Him and His will in order to see it.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 ESV
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