The Good in Bad Experiences
Friday the 13th seems a good time to discuss bad experiences. Everyone I know tries hard to avoid bad things happening. Yet I also know of no one whose life path avoids all bumps or bruises along the way. That’s just not how this fallen world works. And until Christ returns, Jesus’ parting words to His disciples ring true. “In this world you will have trouble . . .” (John 16:33 NIV).
Why do bad experiences happen?
Sometimes we bring bad experiences on ourselves. We may have a lapse in judgment, make an unforced error due to ignorance, speak a careless word, or simply not be paying attention. Suddenly, though the mistake is innocent, the consequences are severe. On occasion, though, our own sinfulness gets the better of us and we do something we later regret. The current #MeToo movement has demonstrated how, even years later, bad experiences can arise out of inappropriate or sinful actions.
Many bad experiences are no one’s fault. A natural disaster can wipe out personal property. An accident or illness can destroy health and savings. A change in a company’s financial position can strip employment. In all these circumstances, we may be passive victims. There is no blame to assign. The precipitating events just are.
And then there are bad experiences that result from a clear moral battle. Perhaps a power struggle at work results in your reputation being undermined. Perhaps the sin of another causes you pain. Perhaps you are victimized by a crime. Perhaps injustice or systemic racism contributes to circumstantial pain. Or perhaps, you courageously stand up for right against powerful forces and suffer severe consequences. We live in an age where evil often wreaks havoc on much that is good.
So where can we find good in all these bad experiences?
First, bad experiences can generate significant new learning. We often learn little when things go well. What is the need? However, on the other side of a painful experience, we are motivated to seek answers. Experience teaches best when that experience is painful.
Second, bad experiences can instill in us greater capacity for understanding and empathy. Suffering begets compassion. It is not easy to be callous to the pain of another who is going through what you once experienced. And with empathy comes the capacity to give comfort.
Third, bad experiences can promote a healthy humility. One of the pitfalls of success is the illusion that we control our own destiny. We enjoy thinking we are “masters of our fate.” Such arrogance and pride are the source of much that is wrong with this world. Failure, on the other hand, shines light on our own weakness and allows us to better see our vulnerability.
Fourth, bad experiences strengthen in us the cardinal virtues (prudence, courage, temperance, and justice). These virtues endorsed by the ancient Greeks and Romans and embraced by the Church Fathers grow only as they are tested. And it is in the crucible of trying experience that they are refined.
Fifth, bad experiences can lead us to repentance. The call of repentance is often unheard until one is forced to listen. And the blunt-force of difficult circumstances often brings the recognition that apart from God’s mercy, life will never be right. We call the turn from our own way to God’s way, “repentance.” History is full of accounts that validate the powerful effect of bad experience in bringing individuals to their knees before their Creator.
Finally, bad experiences can deepen our faith. In scary situations, children will often snuggle closer to their mother or hold tighter to their father’s hand. There is security and peace in the closeness found there. The maelstroms of life also have that effect on our closeness to Jesus. It is in the midst of difficulties that our faith grows rapidly.
Turning the bad into good.
Of course, bad experiences can also result in bitterness, abandonment of faith, self-pity, and a defeatist mindset. Nothing is guaranteed. It seems to me that it is attitude and perspective that make the difference as to whether the inevitable pain of this world will result in good or in bad. If we take the advice of James (and others) in scripture to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2, NIV), we will find good coming out of the bad.
Joy, thanksgiving, and praise are not natural to the victim of misfortune. I think when they arise in the believer it is through a mysterious mixture of the work of the Holy Spirit, an act of the will, and the perspective that in the rear-view mirror, the bad will ultimately result in the good.
Bad experiences are no major threat to those who believe. We serve an all-powerful God who also deeply loves us. Though bad things happen, an ultimate good end for us is guaranteed. As the Apostle Paul asks,
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:31-32, NIV).
So determine that bad experiences will ultimately be good. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Cor. 4:17, NIV).