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How many times have you heard someone say “Looking back, I can see how everything worked out in the end”? How many times have you said that same thing?
In July, 2018, I was in an auto accident. I was driving a 2006 Honda Pilot and pulling a 15 ft trailer that I used for work. The Cadillac in front of me had to stop fast, and so did I. The car behind me didn’t. She rear ended my trailer, pushing it into the Pilot breaking the frame of my vehicle. My car was pushed into the Cadillac. This was a 3 vehicle accident. That is, until the insurance companies got involved. You see, my trailer was insured under a separate company, making this a 4 vehicle accident for insurance purposes. As you can imagine, that did not simplify things!
I had been on my way to finalize 1 job and pick up materials for another for the next day. I had everything planned out like I always do, in a nice, neat, tight schedule. It was around 6 pm, and I still had 2 stops to make before going home for the night.
It had been a long day, but not unlike many others. It was not unusual for me to put in 12+ hour days, and then put in a couple more in paper work in the evening in preparation for the next day. I was past ready to be at home.
Here I was, though, sitting in a severely damaged vehicle. I checked myself, I was not seriously injured. I looked up and saw the people in the SUV in front of me were moving around and turning around to see if I was OK. I could see in my rear view mirror that the driver behind me seemed to be OK. With everyone accounted for, I said to God “OK, what do you have in store for me this time?” My next thought sort of surprised me, “Something good is going to come out of this!”
You see, I was not always that optimistic. My normal self would have been going through the checklist of things that would have to be accomplished, like dealing with insurance, how long I would be without a vehicle, whether or not it was repairable, if my tools were damaged, or how I was going to get to work tomorrow. These are the things that would have normally been flooding my mind. Although these things definitely needed addressed and worked out, they were not the first in my mind. I knew that God had things taken care of.
T Harve Eker made the comment in his book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” that when we look back on tragic events in life, we can see clearly how those things were there to help us. In hindsight, we can see how the events were there to help us. If there was good in those events, the good was there the whole time, whether we could see it or not.
When God showed me that truth, it changed my outlook on life. I began to look for the good in the middle of the bad. I began to see the good materializing in front of me as I sat there in my car waiting for the patrolman to finish his paperwork. I didn’t know what was going to come of everything that had just happened to me, but I knew that it would all be good in the end. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”This truth alone has brought me more peace than any other realization in my life. In the middle of bad there is good. In the middle of life there is God, and God is good. Where God is, there has to be good, even in the tragedy. I just had to change what I was focused on. I had to intentionally focus on God, on the good, and on the peace that brings. It is always there, but without realizing it we are too busy or distracted to see it.What you focus on expands. I want more good in my life. How about you?