Welcome to inside life. Evil can be good, goodness can be evil. That’s how life is wired, to rubbish the devices of the crafty. Human wisdom can transmogrify into the worst foolishness while the latter can transform into the best of the former.
Where this writer comes from, it is said that disappointments can be a blessing. It is true. Most, if not all, disappointments are disguised blessings. The challenge, really, is that those involved are hardly patient or meticulous enough to search for a needle in a haystack.
All evil almost always end as goodness. No, read that as: there’s a drop of goodness in every evil. It was so yesterday; it is so today; it shall be so tomorrow. It shall always be so.
Adam and Eve messed up God’s plan but down the road of sin came salvation. It took quite sometime, because God always allows Satan to leave the kitchen before turning his nonsense broth into the most sumptuous dish. Eventually, when Judas appeared in the picture, he put finishing touches to what Adam and Eve started. And, Jesus -the Son of God- was killed and buried.
All hopes seemed lost. It looked as if evil had overcome goodness forever. However, on the third day that abominable evil resurrected as the best-ever good news. Somebody shout alleluia!
What about Joseph and his brothers and later Joseph at the Potiphars’, Joseph in the prison and much later Joseph in the palace? If the evil of being sold into slavery by own brothers had not happened, how would he have generated the fare to Egypt and if he hadn’t journeyed thereto, how would he have encountered Mrs. Potiphar? Those holier-than-thou critics who disrespect the woman for framing him up after he turned her down so sanctimoniously, if she hadn’t done what she did when she did, how then would he have ended up in prison which had been destined as his connecting bus stop to the palace where he became prime minister just like that? And, without being so highly positioned, how would his family and indeed his people have had food to survive the ravaging famine?
What about David and Goliath, and later David and Saul? If Goliath had not instigated those insults and tantrums and threats, how would Israel and indeed mankind have come to know that there was a greater Goliath in little David? Whether in Goliath’s evil or Saul’s, David teaches us courage, patience, tact, wisdom and, above all, godliness. These five virtues signpost the road map to victory over every evil!
What about the three Hebrew men thrown into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, because they won’t worship his image? Bible users should give the king some credit, please. I mean, if he hadn’t contemplated such drastic punishment, how would believers prove the veracity of either that when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee or that many are the affliction of the righteous but the Lord delivers them out of them all. The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego is categorical evidence that evil can be good.
Nowadays, such evil occurrences as betrayals, crises, defeats, losses and sundry mishaps have been seen to birth real great stuff. We have seen election losers go on to enjoy better and sweeter successes than winners. In my home state of Akwa Ibom, you find people who were scorned as losers going on to succeed perpetually while the winners succeeded only awhile. As it was then, so it is now; so it always shall be: there’s more to evil than tears and sadness.
Learn to pray for crisis to happen. Okay, that is a hard call. Learn to not pray against crisis or to not curse it once it happens. There’s so much to glean or extract from evil.
Let’s consider evil such as crisis. Most bosses or leaders suddenly become better people when crises hit them. Only then do they remember those under them; the same people they sidelined or ignored for years. Crises are good in that they humble the strong so much they go looking for the weak.
Even if that were the only goodness of evil, won’t it have been enough? Fortunately, that’s not all the good there is to evil. Evil can teach faith and faithfulness, love and forgiveness, tolerance and uprightness, and as alluded to earlier: courage, godliness, patience, tact, and wisdom. Evil possesses too much goodness to be dismissed as a satanic vice!
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Every cloud has a silver lining. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Relax, sweetheart, all (evil) things can work together for good to them that love God.
That’s so right: evil can do what goodness couldn’t. A nagging, paranoid wife can push her man away straight into the arms of someone better. A wicked, useless husband can gift his woman the man of her dream. A thieving, truant employee can create employment for someone who has been praying and watching.
Therefore, stop praying against that perceived evil. The success or promotion of a so-called enemy can be an organic way to lift you out of what you don’t know is slavery or poverty, or both. Your failure today could be a shortcut to mega success tomorrow. Death of one or ten could give birth to a thousand.
God bless Nigeria!
Understanding why they won’t ever help you
No matter where, who, and how you are, there are people who shall never help you. The person who internalises this fact lives a healthy long life. Stop worrying why some people don’t help you: they never shall.
And, there are a truckload of reasons they don’t and won’t. One, they hate you. Sssh, you don’t have to do anything to be hated: some people are born haters; they hate even themselves.
Two, most of those who won’t ever help you are envious of you. You may think yourself poor or less endowed but the person you have been begging for help is dying in jealousy over something you have or don’t have. You wait for Godot expecting help from such a one.
Three, people who nurse or harbour a secret grudge or grouse will not help the party concerned. Call them vindictive if you would, but stop wasting time thinking they have forgotten or would forget something you said or did against them. The problem could also be that you’re friends with someone they don’t like or that they themselves are close to someone who never wants you helped.
Four, fear or superstition or suspicion is another reason most people don’t help others. Most people can deny you food if they suspect it will keep you alive to fight over a position or possession with them in future. Some withhold help if they fear that you can use it against them, supernaturally (whatever that means).
Five, religion or politics or such other unholy stupidities could also provide the stumbling block to help. Christians refuse to help other Christians because they don’t belong in the same denomination. Political adherents ignore other human beings because they are in the opposition but soon they find themselves in the same party.
What a shame! If believers could act so satanically, what then do we say of cultists and members of the occult who are said to never help those outside their secret brotherhood? If you quarrel that they never help, perhaps you should join them to understand the mindset!
Six, most persons we seek help from are pretenders to the throne. We are better or richer or more powerful than they are. Only that they show off way too much which is what deceives us to go looking for water in dry wells.
Seven, and the last for this serving, most potential helpers can’t go all the way because -as I always say- help na spiritual somtin. The way life is wired, it is not everyone who should play an active part in your story. In spite of your attempts, there are many people to whom nature won’t hand your bragging rights.
Finally, of course, there are many other reasons many people won’t ever help you; for instance, they may truly not be able to, at the time. However, these seven should suffice for now. They should open our mind and deepen our maturity vis-a-vis contextualising how we react to those who never help us.