Happy Good Friday! Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Has anyone asked you? Which did you choose? We know for sure that life will sometimes bring us good news. At other times, the news may be devastating. “We are all just one phone call from our knees,” as the song says. When the phone rings, which kind of news do you anticipate? Good, or bad? What if we could know the bad things in life before they happened? Would we want to know?
After Abram obeyed and laid out the sacrifices for the covenant, he fell into a deep sleep. Thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Wait. If God is making a covenant with Abram, won’t all the news be good. Won’t the light chase the darkness away? God’s finest servants have often found themselves enveloped in stygian darkness. David walked through the valley of the shadow of death. The disciples languished in the darkness in a boat in a storm. Even in the darkness, the Lord was there speaking to Abram what sounded like bad news. “Your descendants will be slaves for four hundred years.” Ouch!
What is the good news, Lord? “You will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.” What about my descendants? “I will bring them back into this land,” the Lord promised. Then a smoking firepot with blazing torch appeared and sealed the covenant. God promised to give all the land to Abram’s descendants. This is a theophany – the presence of God moved between the pieces of the animals confirming the covenant.
God sees the future the same way we see the past. Here is good news: he is working all things, good and bad, together for the good of his purpose in our lives. Christianity does not promise that everything will go well for us all the time. But God does promise his presence, his providence, his power working even the bad things together for good. Even when we can’t see it, God is working. He never stops. He never stops working, for our good and his glory.
