Hindsight 👀 Is Always 20/20
Today I'm going to share with you an observation I've been making over the last thirty-plus years. This is just an observation and I would not say that it is the plan of the Almighty. We cannot see the spiritual realm which is all around us or what is going on there.
Have you ever had a really bad day? One where everything seems to turn sideways and you wonder if you are cursed. That kind of thing happens to me on a regular basis. Sometimes I don't feel it or experience it for weeks at a time. Other times, it seems like it's constant.
Let's take a look at the opposite of what I just described. There was a day that I got up and went out. I caught every green light on the way to the supermarket. At that time, I was going out on the same day at the same time every week to do my shopping. This particular day was different than all the rest. I get to the grocery store and start doing my shopping. When I got done I got to the cash registers and all of lanes were free. All of them we're just sitting there with no line. I could walk up to any of the cashiers and begin unloading my cart. Then when I got home, my son was at the door when I pulled up, so I did not have to pull out my keys to open the door. He had gotten out of school early. Completely unexpected This was a pleasant surprise because he could help me bring the groceries in. These are just three examples of what one might call good luck that just happened out of the blue.
That kind of good luck is not the norm in my life but I take it when I can get it. Most days, I have my share of stubbed toes or things that fall and break and I never think anything of it because everyone has times when things don't go right..
Getting back to feeling cursed. There are other times when everything goes wrong sometimes three or four things within thirty seconds, then a rest, and another flood of mishaps which can go on for hours or even for days.This kind of thing has been happening off and on for as long as I can remember. And I didn't think that there was any rhyme or reason to it.
Then came a time, about ten years ago, when I was working a job. Everybody complained that the boss would pay them late. I also noticed that I got paid late, sometimes even later than most of the others. At the time I was living paycheck to paycheck and it annoyed me immensely. I found myself making excuses for why I am not paying my bills on time, and it was all because my boss was not paying his bill (to me) on time. I have been a boss before and I considered the paychecks for my employees to be one of my expenses, one of my bills actually.
The Pattern
While working that job, I ended up working from home for quite some time. That allowed me to do other things while working. Some of the things on that list are; receiving packages, cooking or eating while working, taking personal calls, taking notes or updating my journal in between tasks. Yes, I keep a journal. Then I started to notice that the bad luck came mostly toward the end of the month. A couple of times it didn't come right near the end of the month and that seemed strange because I had seen the pattern already and I almost expected it to happen like clock work.
One particular time I was well into the next month and I still had not had the expected bad luck and I thought that maybe the pattern would skip a month. I also noticed that I had not been paid yet and I started making the usual attempts to light a fire under my bosses chair so to speak. I would send emails and then after no response, I would give him a call, and another call. Suddenly at some point, I would have that bad luck hit me. It went on for a day or two (Okay, I guess we are not skipping a month) and it seemed to hit me a week or two late.
I felt the aura while the same streaks of bad luck came into my life.
As sure is the spring brings rains, I would get my paycheck after a a day or two of uncanny clouds of mishaps occurred. After I got paid, life would go back to normal. there were still mishaps, but they were usually due to something I had mislaid and they were few and far between like those that befall a friend or relative. I made the connection. "I think this string of lousy luck comes before I get paid." And I noticed it did. My boss never learned that his employees were way less productive as of the first of the month. They were all feeling unimportant, complaining, spending more time asking each other if they had been paid yet, and the like.
It was like a precursor of receiving the money I had earned. I still called and bothered him if the money did not come on the first of the month, but I had stopped checking my bank balance before writing notes. I had a foolproof way of knowing when to send reminders and when to stop. It worked flawlessly.
The pattern stuck in the back of my mind. After I stopped working that job and started working for myself from home, I noticed that I still had times of bad luck and many of them were incidental, in other words, mild bad luck. Then there were times when major difficulties, sickness, legal problems, divorce, difficulties with clients, lost contracts, etc. that were more of an overarching streak of serious difficulties. Knowing what I discovered while working a job and the workings of that pattern, I started looking through my journal and found that every time I had a small streak of so-called bad luck, something good happened right after it. And whenever I had an overarching streak, something really good happened immediately following it.
I'm a prayerful person as you might guess and because of that, I praise God and something good happens and I thank him for the blessing. The same, but opposite, thing happens when I'm faced with insurmountable problems. I used to find myself asking God "why." I stopped asking why because when you do that your mind will try to find reasons why and you will be hit with the barrage of thoughts as to why things might be happening. In my opinion it's not a good idea to ask why.
I started thinking of my new discovery as similar to, yet not as severe as, what happened to Job in the bible. In a nutshell, The story goes on about how wonderful job's life was, then how tons of horrible things came upon him all at once, then how everything was not only restored to him. I think it said double what he had had to start with. To me that book is an example of what I go through on a regular basis but to a much lesser extent.
I could just replace each thing in the following passage, and that would be a description of my "streaks" of bad luck, one thing after another and before I could believe the first, the second came, and so on and so on...
Job chapter one...
14 when someone rushed up to Job and said, “While your servants were plowing with your oxen, and your donkeys were nearby eating grass, 15 a gang of Sabeans attacked and stole the oxen and donkeys! Your other servants were killed, and I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
16 That servant was still speaking, when a second one came running and said, “God sent down a fire that killed your sheep and your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
17 Before that servant finished speaking, a third one raced up and said, “Three gangs of Chaldeans attacked and stole your camels! All of your other servants were killed, and I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
18 That servant was still speaking, when a fourth one dashed up and said, “Your children were having a feast and drinking wine at the home of your oldest son,
19 when suddenly a windstorm from the desert blew the house down, crushing all of your children. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”
20 When Job heard this, he tore his clothes and shaved his head because of his great sorrow. He knelt on the ground, then worshiped God
Sometimes God squeezes us a little bit in order to see what comes out when we are pressed. It's kind of like a cleaning rag when you rinse it and squeeze it to get all the dirty water out, then wet it again to continue cleaning. Some call these tests from God. As a father, I see my children on occasion ignoring what I tell them might happen as a warning based on my experience, then I watch them ignore that warning. I see them go through exactly what I had tried to keep them from experiencing. Being a father really gives us insight as to what our Father may or may not do when we go along with his guidance, or ignore it and go our own way. That's a topic for another post.
Imagine the Big Picture
We live in this physical realm, if you will. But there are other things happening which may play out as they did in the book of Job. I imagine that the adversary and the other entities who fell with him when he fell are playing at trying to oppose God the same way that darkness opposes light. They cannot exist together at the same time although sometimes we see shadows when we're out in the light. Maybe the entities are at work before God turns on the light of blessing (and he always wants the blessing to come at the right time). Maybe the blessing is what chases the dark aura away when the light of the blessing shines forth. I am guessing here. But one thing is true, that the darkness flees when the light is turned on.
One scenario for everything that I've talked about in this post could be that the adversary, literally Ha Satan in Hebrew, may sense or deduce, based on what's happening in my life, that God is setting up a blessing for me. He then hits me with this so-called bad luck or grief hoping that I will crack and do something that would change the plan of God and/or void the blessing.
Another possibility is that the experience of going from grief to blessing will enhance the joy of the blessing. It matters not whether the test that comes beforehand comes from God or the adversary. I still don't know which it is, all I know is that the pattern exists and it has held up in nine out of ten scenarios, first comes what seems to be a curse and then comes the blessing. Many times, the blessing is something I have been praying for and the time has come to have that prayer answered.
I have had many miracles occur in my lifetime and I know that I really shouldn't even be here at all because he has saved my life and many occasions. My faith is strong. I have no reason to believe that God will allow me to be destroyed by mishaps, no matter how strong they might be.
What do we do when we feel under attack?
I have tried so many different things and I'm going to lay out a couple of them. Sometimes I am just feeling so weak that I don't want to start going through this again and I have the freedom to cancel my appointments for the day and just do something enjoyable. Sitting still and waiting till the aura, or feeling is gone. I don't feel good about that strategy but I do use it sometimes.
When I am intent on pushing through it, I tried to focus on whatever the blessing might be and take the blood boiling precursor as it comes.
Years ago I used to immediately turn to do something good for somebody in need. I used to look around me when something bad happened in order to see if there's anyone in need and just help them. Then, if it's an attack from one of these minions from the "one third of the angels" that fell from heaven, they can go and report back to their boss what the result of the attack was, that I turned around and did something that I might not have otherwise done without said attack. "That will teach them not to mess with me. I showed them!" is what I would say.
I work from home so I'm not usually in the streets anymore but I attack it in this way. When I see a string of uncanny things happening right on the heals of the last one, I immediately turned to prayer, song, praise and worship right there on the spot. This strategy doesn't always prevent the next in the chain of mishaps from happening, but sometimes it does.
I do not believe that I'm being punished for my sins because I am a believer in Messiah, Jesus Christ and I know he came to pay our sin debt. We cannot make up for our sins and we are not indebted to even try. The following passage from Ezekiel 33 is a good representation of the Creator's fatherly character and it speaks to Jew or Christian alike because it comes from the old testament.
11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? 12 “And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness, and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins. 13 Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die. 14 Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, 15 if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 16 None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he shall surely live.
It's all about 📜 His plan and he wants everybody who is willing to join him, when we depart this earth, to have the opportunity to do so and this passage also backs up what Jesus said constantly in the renewed covenant. Thank you for sticking through this post with me and if any of you have your own strategies that you've used to get through tough times, please feel free to share them below.