Dear husband’s parents are 96 and 97 years old. They aren’t finding much pleasure in living right now. At times, they complain, which wearies them and us. Many times, though, they find humor in memories, and they show interest in others, which makes them enjoyable to be around. This has sparked conversations between dear Husband and me,  “What can we learn from watching them? What should we be doing now so we can navigate our last years well?”

Constant complaining drives others away. But denying our feelings isn’t helpful, either. After all, many Bible characters freely expressed their pain and sorrow. David, Job, and Paul come to mind. But there’s a difference between honesty about our feelings and finding fault with everything. Constant griping is different than expressing our pain.

We are starting to see that when we complain, it’s like slapping God in the face. Everything that happens to us has been cleared through God. If he is allowing this, we should accept it. He will show us a way out, send someone to help us, or he will give us grace to live with it. I’m not minimizing suffering. I’m saying that God is bigger than our monsters. He is powerful enough to bring good for us out of the worst circumstances. When we trust God and obey him, he miraculously brings good out of evil.

God has graciously given us examples to follow in responding to evil as well as examples of his mighty power to overcome evil in our lives. Joseph was hated and betrayed by his jealous brothers, yet he held fast to God and continued to obey him even in slavery, false accusation, imprisonment, and neglect. In the end, God raised him to second-in-command of the most powerful nations and gave him a wife and children. But God’s work wasn’t just for Joseph personally. God worked through Joseph’s painful life to save many lives, even the lives of the very brothers who betrayed him! This work of God guaranteed the survival of his people.

The greatest miracle of God bringing good out of evil is the death of Jesus. He was falsely accused by those who were jealous of him. He didn’t deserve execution. Through it all, Jesus held fast to God and obeyed his Father even to death. It appeared that evil won when Jesus took his last breath. But in reality, good had its greatest victory! Jesus was raised to second-in-command of the most powerful, eternal kingdom in the universe, and given spiritual children. Through his pain, Jesus saved millions of lives, even those who betrayed him, but repented, guaranteeing their forgiveness by God.

So, how does an ancient story and a world-changing story affect my daily life? By letting these truths guide me, I’m willing to accept pain and trust God to bring something good out of it. I’m willing to be corrected when I swerve into complaining. I’m so grateful that dear Husband catches me being negative and calls me on it. He doesn’t let me stew in my ungrateful, complaining juices! He has shown me that I can stop the negativity; it’s controllable. The first step is recognizing the black hole I’ve stepped into and then deliberately stepping back. It sure helps me to thank God that he is in control. Then I start thanking him for blessings big and small.

We can train ourselves to dismiss complaining thoughts and seek grateful thoughts. Continually looking for something to thank God for keeps us alert and happy. But always seeing the undesirable makes us dull, and no fun to be around.  G.K. Chesterton, in his book “Orthodoxy,” written in the early 1900’s, encourages us to have a mindset that treats our blessings as things that might not have been. We appreciate what we have more when we think about what it would be like without them. Calling to mind “Robinson Crusoe”, he suggests noticing an ordinary, unremarkable object in our daily life. Then, thinking how happy we would be to have it if we had just rescued it from our sinking ship and had gotten it to the lonely island we had been washed up on. Realizing how easily we could have lost it should make us appreciate it. God doesn’t owe us. Every blessing we have is a gracious gift from God.

Many people, should I say, most people in the world don’t enjoy the physical or spiritual blessings we have. Dear Husband often says out loud how thankful he is for clean water, food, a warm shower, and our church. These should move us to gratitude every single day.  Maybe we are more appreciative of our blessings now because we lived in a third-world country for ten years, the first five years of which we lived in a remote jungle area. The poverty we witnessed there has forever changed us. Their lack was not just physical, but also educational, and spiritual. The evil power of superstition kept many in bondage until they heard about the Creator God and his Son, Jesus, and turned from oppressive evil spirits. The lack of education and books made learning a rare privilege there. I still remember the evening dear Husband invited some young men to our house for a simple science lesson: the earth is round, and it rotates. He showed them a globe and used a study lamp for the sun to demonstrate night and day. They were enthralled.

We had access to privileges our national friends didn’t have: getting nutritious food, finances to buy necessities, a crude, but comfortable, single-family house with indoor toilets and running water,  (not a multi-family longhouse with bark walls), books, and education. I definitely felt guilt when meat and vegetables were unloaded off the small airplane for our family, while my neighbors ate rice and ferns. (Ferns, btw, are very bitter.) It’s hard to take our meals for granted then and now. Why would God choose to lavish these blessings on us?!  The hygiene we take for granted was unheard of by our friends. Our roof collected rainwater, which was stored for drinking, bathing, and toilets. Our neighbors had to boil muddy river water to drink. They used the same river for bathing, laundry, and toilets.

So, the next time you look at your own situation, whether it’s a small annoyance or decades of pain, remember that God is in charge and he delights in bringing good out of evil when we trust and obey him. Then start thanking him!