Sometimes when I desire to start a fire, the wind snuffs it out. However, when I attempt to keep a fire burning, wind keeps it going. So, in the first situation, I would label wind "bad" because it impedes my plans; in the other, I label it "good" because it helps me accomplish my goal.

This paradox illustrates how we judge things by the way they affect us. We declare circumstances or people "bad" if they interrupt our plans or cause us inconvenience. We somehow judge circumstances or people "good" if we agree with them and they support our cause.

God is the One who determines what is good or bad, and He does so not by how it affects our plans but by whether or not it accomplishes His. His plan is that we would be "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people." And His ultimate purpose for us is to "proclaim the praises of Him who called us out darkness into His marvelous light" (1Peter 2:9)

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