Life is like a pair of railroad tracks…

An e-mail forward I received led me to do an online search, in which I found the following excerpt from a conversation with Rick Warren**:

I used to think that life was hills and valleys—you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, which is my problems, my issues, my pain. But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. 

It is interesting that when one happening can be interpreted as a blessing by someone, it may be interpreted as a curse by another.

In a post up at the The Boundless Line, Ted Slater ponders the benefits to one, loss to another issue. Here is a blurb from that post:

Then I wondered about similar kinds of blessings. If I get a parking space near the door or the last piece of pie at the buffet, someone else doesn’t. If I find a $20 bill fluttering on the ground, someone has lost their $20 bill. If I find a good deal on a HUD house, someone has likely been evicted from their home. If I marry a wonderful woman, some other guy doesn’t get to.

Surely the Lord has His hands on the events of my life, even the seemingly meaningless ones. Why in His providence do I sometimes benefit at someone else’s loss?

And more importantly, what should my attitude be when I am blessed in this particular kind of way? Maybe a sober thankfulness? Maybe, in light of my undeserved good fortune, open-handed generosity? Maybe with humility, knowing that the Lord in His providence may some day want to bless someone else through my loss?

Surely with the conviction that my loving Father’s ways are not capricious, but simply beyond mine.

We’ve probably been on the receiving end of a myriad of ‘invisible blessings’ when we don’t at all view them as such. How often have I complained when I received one of those? And even if there’s not a direct  ’invisible blessing’ associated with a seeming loss, it has to be part of the grander plan. We know that if we are called by God, all works for the good.

Perhaps the ‘invisible blesssings’ concept can be remembered in heavy traffic. A worthwhile conversation may be happening in the car ahead of me. Perhaps because of the delay I was spared from a fatal accident.

Or if someone gets a seemingly ‘undeserved’ traffic ticket. Perhaps it helped the city create a park for all to enjoy or contributed to a hard-earned salary of someone who is financially struggling.

Or if a backpack gets stolen; maybe their Bible inside got deposited in a place and got opened by the right person at the right time.

Or if, or if…

We will likely not always see the good, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there, even if the good is simply part of the seemingly invisible process of God’s work in us. Check out 1 Peter 1:6-7 (ESV):

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

 

**On this website was posted the same or similar forward I got, pointing out that parts of it were probably from this website in an article published by Jim Dailey

***Photo by HamWithCam