People are in our lives for our triumphs, testing or training

In a world where we can have an enormous range of experiences with people, I’ve often associated people’s roles in my life to be for my triumphs, for my testing, or for my training.

Those who are there for our triumphs are God’s encouragers.

They seem to exist to motivate and inspire us.  They believe the best about us, forgive easily, urge us on when we’re at our depths, and they are truly God’s ordained instruments for our betterment.  They make us feel safe and we glint with delight even as we think of them.  They were and are our strength when we lack or have lacked.

It’s not just what they’ve done that cheers us, however blessed we feel about what we’ve received.  It’s not just what they have given us, though their sowing into us has been incredible and indeed remarkable.  It’s more than this.

It’s who they are.  It’s their very person that God has used to shape us for our good.  These people are light in our lives.

Those who are there for our testing are God’s checkers.

We all need to be held to some sort of account.  One of the greatest secrets in life is not to disdain the testers who are there and very deliberately God-placed.  It doesn’t even matter if their motives are not the purest.

Please hear this gently.  Anyone who is just a little suspicious of us is our friend, because they keep us on our toes.  In being kept sharp, we don’t fall for the temptations we would if we were even just a little bit lazier.

One of the things we can delight in is making a friend of a checker.  It may take some time to win them over, but when they trust us, we can hear God’s affirmation of, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The checkers in our life God will use to root out pride, entitlement, and any form of disrespect that ought to have no place in our lives.  These people, whether they’re rightly motivated or not, are like salt.

Those who are there for our training are God’s reminders.

These are a different grouping altogether.  God uses these people for our good even if we suffered a great deal of harm from them.  God can redeem anything, and this is especially a comfort to those of us who were traumatised by our experiences.

Does God ever condone the instances and situations of our mistreatment?  Never!  But God does use these experiences for our benefit, for our education, for our maturing, and to create protectors-of-others out of us.  Truly every person misshaped by abuse is an advocate in the making.

Those who were in our lives for a short while, or even a long while, those who mistreated us, gave us a taste of a humanity none should experience.  They were the cause of an eventual triumph — if we’ve lived to tell the tale — which is another reason to be thankful for.  Yes, for our lives.

It is a wonderful thing in life to have endured what we have.  With it, we have been equipped.  As we look forward, peering through the looking glass of our life experience, we make wiser choices, and we’re reminded more than ever, for what we suffered, just how important it is to be compassionate toward, kind with, patient of, gentle with, and respectful of everyone.

We would not know how important it is to love everyone had we not suffered and been healed.

Photo by Rainier Ridao on Unsplash