God Turns Evil into Good

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

And so every evil that people do to you, they may intend it for your evil, but God means it for your good. Now if you say to me, "Oh, you mean God sent it?" No, no. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters."

The Father is always looking after us. He is always sending his good gifts. He wants the best for us. He is not in the business of sending us evil. No, God doesn't send it, but when it's on its way to you, he uses it. He transforms it and he uses it for your good.

In other words, your character and mind have developed all kinds of weaknesses from the fact that we have not really trusted God. We've trusted everybody else. We've trusted things and people and circumstances and all kinds of other things. There are great weaknesses in our character that have to be changed.  God uses the evil that people try to do to us to draw us closer to himself and to change us.

So God is always in the business of filtering the worst things that people do to you through his own hands and using it for your good. Now that's in James, if you haven't read that before.

James 1:2 "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

In other words, when somebody does something against you, at that moment, God is giving you an opportunity to believe that He is in control.  And as you do that, your faith in him grows. So the other guy might mean you evil, but actually it results in you being stronger in your God and more at peace in the fact that he is in control.

Now you may say, "Oh listen, listen.  If I don't act, these people will mow me down. If I don't act to resist evil when they do it to me, they'll destroy me."  No.  No they won't. The Father has his hands like that over you and he watches the evil coming down.  If he sees that one big lump that will really crown you, he just pulls with his hands. So he just lets through the little lumps that you can deal with.  He lovingly watches you, and he knows what you're able to bear.  He only lets through to you what he can use.