Have you ever made a life map? It is an exercise where you look back at your life and categorize the big events by designating them as either good or bad. To create a visual picture of your journey, you lay them out on paper using different color post-it-notes. If you have done this before, you know, it creates quite a reflective moment.
Initially, it’s not that hard to distinguish where events land. Some things are obviously good, and others clearly bad. But the more your eyes peruse the notes the more puzzling it becomes. You are not so sure that that green colored good thing was that good? Hmmm? And that bad thing, upon further review, turned out to be a really, really good thing. Without it you wouldn’t have found the deeper humility. Or the insights that God has used in your ministry. Without that yellow-posted problem, you wouldn’t really be where you are right now.
Life maps are very interesting—aren’t they? Especially, when an infinite, sovereign God is involved.