More Good Days than Bad Days

Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you're the bug.

That's a saying I've heard all my life. Simply put, it is meant to convey the truth that each of us has good days and bad days. We have days when we're on top. On those days we win the contract, our kid gets that acceptance letter she's been waiting for, and our drawer balances out on the first counting. Other days we look at the clock, wondering why our 8-hour pain medication wore off after 2 hours and not knowing if we'll make it another 6 hours without help. We get the call that our son is fine, but the car is going to need some work. And writers kill off our favorite character for no good reason but refuse to end that boring story arc that dominated last season and somehow survived into the next season. Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you're the bug.

One of my favorite biblical characters understood that concept very well. Job, who said, "Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him:" (Job 13:15, NKJV) understood intimately the concept of good days vs. bad days. Job was righteous, deserving of more good days than bad, but he suffered some of the worst loss in Bible record. (That's saying something, considering the scale of loss recorded in the Bible.) But even on the bad days, Job never lost sight that those days, as much as the good ones, are gifts from God.

I had a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant tell me one time, "Mark, if you wake up three days in a row and you hate your job, it's time to get a new one." That was good advice at the time, or so it seemed to a young Lance Corporal who was certain the crusty Gunny would have chastised Jesus for poor time management skills that forced him to walk on the water to catch up to the disciples in the boat.

I digress. The Gunny's approach is one of the reasons the Marine Corps moves personnel around every 2 - 3 years. And while the Gunny's advice worked for a 20-year-old kid living in military housing, it's a bit impractical for a 40-something father of three with a mortgage, two car payments, and credit card payments due on the 21st of each month. If I changed jobs every time I had 3 bad days, my resume would be 10 pages long! In truth, life demands something a little more practical than Gunny's 3-day rule.

That's why coming back to Job's story is so important. Job had a string of bad days, but his faith never waivered. True, he argued with God, had a little "why me" pity party and admitted that on some days he wished that he'd never been born, but he still never lost sight of the one truth that God owns the bad days just as He owns the good ones - and He gives us more good days than bad.

You see, Christian, even when the pain meds wear off a couple of hours early, even when we have to reach into our pocket to even out the drawer, even when Congress raises your taxes to pay for a COVID relief bill you didn't get to vote on, even on those days when God slays us, we can trust in Him. We can trust in Him because He knows our pain. We can trust in Him because He knows how to make your remaining paycheck cover those outstanding bills. We can trust in Him because He knows when the pandemic will end, who will be in the White House, and when you're going to get that next pay raise to make things a little easier.

We can trust in Him because, when the scale covers eternity, He gives more good days than bad.

(Photo: New York, World Trade Center, 2001)