God in the Evil | All Work for your Good

In 2015, I was to join university towards the end of the year. Growing up, Kyambogo University was always bad mouthed. As result, no one wished to go there after high school. All eyes were on the now 100-year-old Makerere University, one of the best universities in Africa.

During applications, for formality, and because our parents asked, I just applied to every university. The short lists returned in turns. Kyambogo was the first; and mother called me having seen my name in the newspapers having been given a diploma of architecture. It’s like going to Kyambogo hadn’t been enough. I had been given a damn diploma. This too had been bad mouthed. The youth never considered it a ‘weighty’ undergraduate degree, hence I’d already been biased.

I waited for Makerere lists. I prayed, hoping for better. My ignorance had clouded my judgement and I didn’t see any reason for giving thanks. Unfortunately, Makerere University did not only disappoint me, but also broke my heart! Rather than giving me a course I didn’t want atleast, it didn’t admit me at all! I had to swallow my pride and go to the ‘local’ and ‘backward’ university as the younger millenials called it.

Eight years later, I am in my fourth year, going on to my fifth, pursuing the bachelors degree of architecture having forgotten how bad I felt the first time I had been admitted and how evil I must have thought this whole allocation was since it had gone against my wishes.

You see God opened my eyes, and made me realize that it had all been working for my good. I have relatives who live in the town next to the university, and they’ve been taking care of all my accommodation needs ever since after the diploma.

The distance is five to six minutes away by motor means, and I get to the lectures quite on time regardless of how late I’d have been. It’s not expensive at all, as the income I earn goes to catering for tuition needs and upkeep which has made me financially free from depending on my guardians or parent.

This is not the same for other students, as I hear them talk of rent, and purchasing food. Many travel from far to come to school, and if a lecturer doesn’t show up, it’ll have been a waste of cash. I’m so near that I can always wait for confirmation of a lecturer’s presence before I can spend a penny.

In a nutshell, I’ve counted so many advantages of one good decision that God made for me. I look back and instead become grateful to Him for having made this choice for me. He shut the door of what seemed like the better university — which is actually relative — and led me to the best choice I needed even without giving me the chance to choose!

Even the scorn I had at the diploma dissipated. Why? I got into the field quite early, and got handy with learning how to make money in all areas such that when I returned for the bachelor’s, I made a living, which would not have been if I joined straight from high school, and I see those who haven’t had this opportunity struggle to afford some basic needs while at school, seeing especially that this course is expensive even in purchasing materials to make a 3D impression of all projects we design…

I am not making other colleagues feel bad about their status, and I hope they do not as they read this. I’m but only describing to the dot all the good things that befell me all because of a decision I thought was bad, yet it all was actually good.

Now, if I asked you this question, what would your answer be: ‘Does God orchestrate evil?’ Does He sit down and write bad scripts about you and I? Does He will bad for us sometimes?

Well, God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good. If He seconds out to think evil, then that makes Him the devil … which He’s not. From the first experience I narrated, you realize going to Kyambogo wasn’t bad or ‘evil’. I was the blind one. My attitude and perspective were stained but God worked regardless. It’s then us who are the problem, rushing to conclude that something is bad, or is ‘of the devil’ even when it’s not.

On the other hand, the evil that happens in the world is chiefly done by firstly; the devil, and man (who’s influenced by the serpent, like in that garden years ago).

We hear accidents occurring in the world. Some lives are taken sadly. But it was because a man got drunk and drove. Another didn’t take their car for servicing, then the brakes got faulty and he bashed into other cars. Another man was texting while driving. Another man hated others, and so he planted a bomb near the road.

So is it right to always say ‘God gives and takes away?’

No!

The thief comes but to steal, kill and destroy. God’s been made the thief, and we have subtly made him wear the thief’s attire in the name of ‘He gives and takes away’ which was originally spoken by Job who thought that God had killed all his children, without knowing that it was the devil. And it’s a trick he uses a lot, for if God is named evil, then men will stay farther away from Him, keeping from genuine fellowship.

However, I’ve learnt that even if God isn’t evil, He is capable of the darkest evil ever known to man. C.S Lewis said (and I paraphrase), that the same God who’s capable of the most good, is also capable of the most evil.

He Himself confesses in Isaiah 45:7 that He forms the light, and creates darkness… “I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”

Not my words … but His.

This then instills in us a greater fear for Him than for the devil. So that if the devil threatens to harm you, you are confident that the one who’s capable of more ultimate evil beyond what the devil can do, is on your side.

But returning to the question I asked, whether God orchestrates evil… It’s multifaceted. I’d now say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ depending on the scenario. As I had mentioned that man does evil, we see our ‘no’ in Joseph’s story.

No, God didn’t want it that way that Joseph’s brothers would sell him as a slave. Poor teen must have thought God had abandoned him. But like my story, Joseph got to have his eyes opened after many many years. The vision he had was misinterpreted by his entire family.

Evil didn’t stop God’s plans for Him however, and neither will any evil stop His plans for you. Joseph’s dreams still came to pass. His brothers bowed to him. He looked back and said, “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt! But now, do not be distressed and disheartened or vexed and angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.” (Genesis 45:4-5)

What caused evil then was a lack of understanding/interpretation or full vision to Joseph’s dream. If all knew the meaning of the dream, then, no one would have dared to lay a finger on Joseph. His brothers would have fought anyone who tried. For they’d have understood that the preservation of not only them but the entire world rested on Joseph.

* * *

For where I’d answer ‘yes’ to our debate, I have a case as well. Exodus 8:32 says ‘But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also; neither would he let the people go.’

When God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it spilled out on the Israelites. They suffered, like that time when they were made to make bricks without straw. This all felt ‘evil’, and if they were being punished, then the source of this evil was indirectly from God.

But I thought He doesn’t delight in our suffering…

We lose the point if we don’t ask the why to this ‘evil’.

Exodus 7:3 says ‘And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.’

God caused the chastening of the Israelites, but the end was that He’d multiply HIS signs and WONDERS in Egypt. Sometimes, it takes bad stuff happening to us for God’s mighty power to be seen — To see Him indeed like a true hero coming in to still the darkness or fight for us. If all has always been smooth in your life, there would be a dearth for the need of God. But as that boss makes life harder for you, God’s about to multiply His signs and wonders over you!

Exodus 14:17 says, ‘And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen.’

Even when the Israelites thought they were done for, little did they know that it was their enemies who were in for it: racing towards their death by sea.

We’d say God permitted evil to befall Job. He didn’t however do the evil Himself. The devil cast a lot — a bet. But the origin of all this was God boasting of Job. He was confident that no manner of wickedness or trials would cause Job to curse (denounce) Him. God was showing off!

Jesus bled blood in the garden of Gethsemane. He was about to suffer, and He knew it. He begged God to take away that cup of suffering, but He bore the wisdom to know that it was all for the good of the world. Peter didn’t understand the concept of God in the evil. He cut off the ear of a soldier that had come to bound Jesus, but if that evil didn’t happen, if Jesus commanded legions of angels to come to his bidding, He would not have been slain or crucified. And man today would still be sacrificing burnt offerings and sin offerings to beg pardon of God.

The evil had to happen, and the short sighted devil could not see that greater glory awaited Christ. Though it was symbolism, Jesus’ outcome had already been prophesied about by many. If Jesus stopped the evil from happening, then all prophecies about His bruising and death would have become a lie, and God’s reputation would have been tarnished. If God allowed evil to happen to His very own son, its end was not for doom, but for good.

Lazarus’ death was evil; and Jesus having not been around would have made me hate Him more if I was one of Lazarus’ sisters. I mean these two were friends and even Jesus after receiving a warning came 4 days later.

“Bro — Lazarus is already rotting! Thanks for showing up when we don’t need you.”

But what seemed evil, God turned for good. He showed the crowd that nothing was impossible for Him. Calling Lazarus out of the grave, 4 days later, man … if any remained not in awe of Him then they were sick in the head. That act alone must have caused more glory to God as opposed to if Jesus came and healed Lazarus before he died. He had healed many, but He hadn’t done this kind of dead-raising miracle yet!

By default I learnt that God’s purpose in any thing evil that you experience is to ensure that it works and turns for your good.

1 Samuel 1:5 says ‘But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the LORD had closed her womb.’ Hannah initially was praying for a child just to impress his co-wife that she too could have children. God didn’t allow it. It was until Hannah’s reason for having a child changed — that the child would serve God all his days in the Lord’s temple. That is when God did allow her to get pregnant. The small ‘evil’ smote Hannah to a place of commanding a whole destiny of the prophetic office upon her son, who anointed Israel’s greatest king. If it had not been for the delay, trust me, we would never have known Samuel the way we do today.

Hitherto, I had excluded another category of victims. Proverbs 13:21 states that ‘evil pursues sinners. But to the righteous, good will be repaid.’ The psalmist once had an issue of wicked men who seemed to prosper. But if evil pursues them, that only meant that their fall would be harder, as on top of falling, they’d lose all the riches they had garnered. The other point is for the sinner to crossover to sainthood (by believing in heart and confessing Jesus by mouth as personal Lord and savior). As for the righteous, it is goodness and mercy that shall follow them all the days of their lives. If the sinner remains … then evil will continue pursuing him or her.

In conclusion, the attitude we ought to have in the evil … is the same that Joseph had. Knowing that all things work together for your good! For if God has allowed it, then its utter end is good. Remember His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts too. But since He has given us His mind, (1 Cor 2:16), we have the intuition to know what He’s up to, or how it’ll all end.

This good could be to grow our character, to prove Himself strong so that we can trust Him more (like the Israelites did when He split the sea) or even to enable us align greater destinies for our futures (like Hannah did for Samuel)

Secondly; to separate God, man, and the devil. God shouldn’t take the blame for the evil caused by man and Satan. The more we blame Him for deaths, the less men trust Him. So next time something bad happens, be careful before you conclude on who caused it. Men have turned away from God because they lost something or someone. And when they turn who do they find with arms wide open? — The real enemy.

Thirdly, if someone is a believer, their reality is ‘good’; their atmosphere is ‘good’; their air is ‘good’. This is equivalent to saying if they were fish, their surrounding would be water. Now whatever falls in the water becomes wet like them. The element of wetness rubs off them as well like it already has the fish. Now replace wetness with goodness. The Bible says in God we live and move and have our being. If He’s the water, and a bad thing comes toward you, know that its original form has been distorted to ‘good’ since it’s broken through His ‘surface’.

Its algorithm is reconstructed to be good good good. If it was from earth, and you’re on the moon, it is forced to obey a new reality which is ‘no gravity’. It can’t carry gravity from earth to subject it upon you. Rather, it is broken to subject itself to the moon (God) and if the moon says “No gravity here”… there’ll be no gravity for it to pull you down. If the moon says “Here all end up into good” … It’s LAW! God is like a bubble in which you exist, whose air is good, and turns good whatever foul air that penetrates its surface.

I pray for you then, that though it’s hard to see what good will come out from a seemingly bad event once it happens, that you will still carry the assurance that that good is there, even if it hasn’t been seen yet.

I now hand you over to the Holy Spirit, to teach you what I’d have left out on this matter.

•

Genesis 50:20 As for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are this day.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose.