Non-judging

Given that God is Immanuel -- the One who is with us every moment of every day in all our circumstances, making grocery shopping as holy an event as church attendance because both can be done in the presence of and in fellowship with God -- then one day is not better than another. Today may be more difficult than yesterday, it may have more fun events in it, it may be more exhausting or more exhilirating than another day, but it is not better.

Romans 8:28 says it this way: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." In other words, no matter what the circumstances of our life look like, God is doing what God is always doing -- working for good, and that makes all our circumstances, in God's hands, a source of good and of blessing.

This is why the Bible can say to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). How can you give thanks when a car accident has just claimed the life of your husband? How can you give thanks when you've just lost your job? How can you give thanks when your best friend has turned his back on you? How can you give thanks when sin and the devil are flooding in on you?

How, indeed? But even when the circumstances are evil, God is working for the good of those who love Him. Indeed, He even works for the good of those who don't love Him. "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). As the song says, "God is good all the time".

It is not our natural tendency to make an effort to see God in all our circumstances. We naturally react to everything we experience in terms of what we think its value is to us, and usually we define "value" according to how good something makes us feel. And so, when something happens, we make an automatic judgment, and we lock ourselves into that judgment. Which is unfortunate because then we can't see the good. If we wake up and it's raining, and we grumble, "What a rotten day", we may not then hear the robin singing for all it's worth or the fact that the first crocus has poked its head through the melting snow on our lawn or that there's the faintest but still very beautiful rainbow in the sky. And so we miss the blessings of that part of our day.

Because of this, contemplatives work at spotting these judgments and putting them on hold, so they can see everything that's going on in that moment, including God's goodness.