Within the Bad
Some twenty years ago, I heard a phrase that has stayed with me since. From time to time, it echoes through my mind, although I've never stopped to consider why. It was spoken by my friend's mom, shortly after her brother had had an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. As she spoke about the challenges and hardships, she said something amazing: thank the Lord that dentro de lo malo, it is good.
I write it in Spanish because as I've turned this phrase over in my mind I find it's hard to come up with an English equivalent.
So much of my hope and faith are centered on the idea that God redeems what is bad. That after we have gone through trials, he turns them around and uses them for good. It's certainly true. But I think the order of that thought process leaves something lacking.
Micah and I used to joke, at one particular church we attended, that people always seemed to struggle in the past. When we asked for their honest thoughts about difficult areas in their lives, they always talked about past sins that God had rescued them from, about past hang ups and challenges. I will never minimize God's ability to free us from struggles. But I seriously doubt this whole church somehow had cornered the market on sanctification. And it left me, who struggled (struggles!) daily with sin and darkness somehow feeling as though the God I served was waiting on the other side of the struggle, once it was neatly resolved, to make something good of it.
We're missing the point.
God doesn't work all things for good in spite of the bad, or after the bad--he works all things for good within the bad. This is the closest equivalent I can think of to capture the meaning of that word, dentro. In the very heart of the bad--in the center of the darkness and despair and pain--that is where God is working.
I think we know it, but we've skimmed over it through the years. Still, it's there in a hundred different stories and verses.
"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." (Psalm 23:4)
Not somewhere at the end of the valley, where the path opens back up and the sunlight shines through. In the valley. In the midst of it. Dentro de lo malo.
And again,
"...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words... And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good..." (Romans 8:26-28)
Joseph said to his brothers, after he had been sold into slavery and jailed for several years, that "You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people." (Genesis 50:20) The good work began long before Joseph was rescued from jail, while he was still in prison. Even there God was redeeming the darkness.
I would argue that a belief that evil only "works out for good" after it has been neutralised leaves us relying on our own strength to endure the darkness. We know, ultimately, that evil and darkness will eventually come to an end. But that knowledge does very little to help us endure--let alone find good--within the dark hours. Instead I read,
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)
and,
"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of the darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6).
What good is a lamp once the sun has risen and there is light streaming through the windows?
Of course, why does this distinction matter at all?
Because most of the paths we walk on this earth will be walked through a valley. There will be mountain peaks, but there will be many dark, painful hours spent in the valleys. If God is only waiting for me on the mountain peaks, how will I ever endure the darkness? If I'm left to walk alone until the valley has run its course, how will I ever reach the peaks? And, what's more, if so much of my life is spent in these valleys, if good is never worked within the valley, isn't much of my life wasted?
No. Our God is a God who walks, step by step, through every peak and valley. He redeems the evil in our lives in hindsight, but he also redeems in the midst. There is no waiting for the good--it's here, now. There's no wondering where his light is, it's shining in the darkness--right in the very heart of it.
God is with us, dentro de lo malo--not at the end of the long, dark tunnel; not once we've managed to make ourselves respectable; but in the very groans of agony, he is here. And he is good. And that, in all honesty, changes everything.
I write it in Spanish because as I've turned this phrase over in my mind I find it's hard to come up with an English equivalent.
So much of my hope and faith are centered on the idea that God redeems what is bad. That after we have gone through trials, he turns them around and uses them for good. It's certainly true. But I think the order of that thought process leaves something lacking.
Micah and I used to joke, at one particular church we attended, that people always seemed to struggle in the past. When we asked for their honest thoughts about difficult areas in their lives, they always talked about past sins that God had rescued them from, about past hang ups and challenges. I will never minimize God's ability to free us from struggles. But I seriously doubt this whole church somehow had cornered the market on sanctification. And it left me, who struggled (struggles!) daily with sin and darkness somehow feeling as though the God I served was waiting on the other side of the struggle, once it was neatly resolved, to make something good of it.
We're missing the point.
God doesn't work all things for good in spite of the bad, or after the bad--he works all things for good within the bad. This is the closest equivalent I can think of to capture the meaning of that word, dentro. In the very heart of the bad--in the center of the darkness and despair and pain--that is where God is working.
I think we know it, but we've skimmed over it through the years. Still, it's there in a hundred different stories and verses.
"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." (Psalm 23:4)
Not somewhere at the end of the valley, where the path opens back up and the sunlight shines through. In the valley. In the midst of it. Dentro de lo malo.
And again,
"...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words... And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good..." (Romans 8:26-28)
Joseph said to his brothers, after he had been sold into slavery and jailed for several years, that "You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people." (Genesis 50:20) The good work began long before Joseph was rescued from jail, while he was still in prison. Even there God was redeeming the darkness.
I would argue that a belief that evil only "works out for good" after it has been neutralised leaves us relying on our own strength to endure the darkness. We know, ultimately, that evil and darkness will eventually come to an end. But that knowledge does very little to help us endure--let alone find good--within the dark hours. Instead I read,
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)
and,
"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of the darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6).
What good is a lamp once the sun has risen and there is light streaming through the windows?
Of course, why does this distinction matter at all?
Because most of the paths we walk on this earth will be walked through a valley. There will be mountain peaks, but there will be many dark, painful hours spent in the valleys. If God is only waiting for me on the mountain peaks, how will I ever endure the darkness? If I'm left to walk alone until the valley has run its course, how will I ever reach the peaks? And, what's more, if so much of my life is spent in these valleys, if good is never worked within the valley, isn't much of my life wasted?
No. Our God is a God who walks, step by step, through every peak and valley. He redeems the evil in our lives in hindsight, but he also redeems in the midst. There is no waiting for the good--it's here, now. There's no wondering where his light is, it's shining in the darkness--right in the very heart of it.
God is with us, dentro de lo malo--not at the end of the long, dark tunnel; not once we've managed to make ourselves respectable; but in the very groans of agony, he is here. And he is good. And that, in all honesty, changes everything.
