Lessons from Literature: Jumping to Conclusions while God’s Not Done (The Baron’s Apprenticeship)

We’re returning to George MacDonald’s trilogy for another literary lesson (see this post for the previous one), but this time the golden nugget comes from the third book, The Baron’s Apprenticeship. And this time, the goodness is delivered via a character’s mouth. We’ll get right to it and join Barbara as she is recounting a conversation she had with the curate, Thomas Wingfold:  

Mr. Wingfold said that it was not fair, when a man had made something for a purpose, to say it was not good before we knew what his purpose with it was. “I don’t even like my wife to look at my poems before they’re finished,” he said. “But God can’t hide away his work till it is finished, as I do my verses, and we ought to take care what we say about it. God wants to do something better with people than people think” (p. 95).

The truth and accompanying implications here, stated another way, are these: 1) God does things with a purpose; 2) God’s purpose in a given situation is not usually apparent to us at the outset; 3) we should avoid jumping to conclusions about our circumstances, assuming we know His purpose, and judging Him and our circumstances according to those assumptions. As these thoughts were simmering in my mind, I came across several Psalms that help us look deeper into this idea.

In Psalm 105, the psalmist is recounting the history of Israel from Abraham to the exodus from Egypt and return to the Promised Land. In the middle of the psalm, we read, “When he [God] summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them […]” (v. 16-17a, ESV*).  Here we see God’s preparation for His people, years before they ever knew a famine was coming. What a beautiful, good thing!

But in the rest of verse 17, we find an unexpected ending: “When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph who was sold as a slave.” So wait, our good God provided a means of survival for His people, but He did it by allowing a man to become a slave? You got it.

I think it’s safe to say that we can all agree that slavery is bad. And being kidnapped by your brothers and sold to foreigners isn’t something we would call “good.” Yet, Joseph himself acknowledged that God’s hand was in his slavery. He told his brothers, “And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God,” (Genesis 45:7-8a). He later told them, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). Very clearly, Joseph understood that what seemed like a bad situation was actually a good one. But likely, he had doubts when he was in prison in a foreign land, having been unjustly accused after having been sold into slavery.

Joseph’s story is probably the most common illustration for the idea that what looks like something bad can actually be something good, but that shouldn’t make it any less potent. And when we combine it with Thomas Wingfold’s admonition to avoid judging things as “not good” prematurely, it becomes even more thought-provoking. What would have happened if Joseph had insisted that God had sent this flood of horrible circumstances upon him and therefore couldn’t be relied upon much less worshipped? What would have happened if he had hardened his heart to God because he judged God’s purpose to be against him instead of for him? How often are we guilty of doing just that?

In other Psalms, we see this idea again, that God uses bad to bring about good. Psalm 66:11-12 reads, “You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through the fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.” Notice God is the one doing the action here. God is the one bringing them into the net; God is the one laying a burden on them—and not just any burden, a crushing burden; God is the one letting them be ridden over. The verse prior to these tells us that God did these things to test and try His people; in other words, God put them through challenging times to refine them for their ultimate good.

Are we comfortable and confident enough in our faith to accept that God sometimes puts us in painful, difficult, even crushing situations? Do we believe in a God that is big enough to redeem evil and use it for good? In these verses, God is the one inflicting the “negative” things on His people, but He is also the one bringing them out of those things into a peaceful place where they can flourish. His purposes were sure all along, even though the process might have obscured them from view.

Elsewhere, the psalmist writes, “You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again” (Psalm 71:20). Again we see that God is the one making him experience trouble, but that God is also the one who brings back to life what has been crushed. God can send someone to the lowest of lows and then bring them up again.

In all of these cases, what is important to note is that God is not cruel in allowing bad to happen to us. In our finite existence, it can seem that sad and painful circumstances are always and forever bad, but in God’s infinite reality in which we live, where His ways are far above our understanding, His good purposes are always at work and will always prevail. As the psalmist testifies, “The works of his hands are faithful and just” (Psalm 111:7a). We must be careful, then, that we don’t unjustly accuse our all-wise God of cruelty or callousness simply because we cannot see the bigger picture or all of the details of His eternal plan.

Because we know who He is from His Word, we can trust Him completely—even in the midst of crushing burdens that weigh us down, grief that knocks our breath away, and pain that doesn’t relent. He is in control. And He is good. I can’t think of a better way to conclude than to revisit Thomas Wingfold’s words. May they sink into your soul, challenging and encouraging you as they have me.

Mr. Wingfold said that it was not fair, when a man had made something for a purpose, to say it was not good before we knew what his purpose with it was. “I don’t even like my wife to look at my poems before they’re finished,” he said. “But God can’t hide away his work till it is finished, as I do my verses, and we ought to take care what we say about it. God wants to do something better with people than people think.”

Source: MacDonald, George (Phillips, Michael, ed.) The Curate of Glaston. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1986.

*All Scripture is quoted from the English Standard Version

Lessons from Literature: The Making of a Classic (Good Wives: Little Women, Part II)

Ancient history has never been my favorite period to study, perhaps because it seems so far removed from our own times that imagination and empathy require a great deal more effort. Nonetheless, my ancient history course in college did gift me with the opportunity to work on strengthening those skills and to expand my understanding of the world as it was and as it is.

Among the ways this was accomplished was through my professor’s use of original works for our textbooks. Thucydides, Plato, Suetonius, and others—authors of the “classics”—became our tour guides to the ancient world. And as my small group presented on St. Augustine’s City of God, I pondered what it was about these works—indeed, any works—that make them “classics.” Five years later, while reading another classic, I encountered the conclusion I had reached in that Ancient History classroom.

The novel was Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott (which is actually the second half of Little Women), and in her usual insightfulness Alcott slips in powerful truth in a parenthetical statement. She is describing the scene of Beth’s sickroom, made as cheerful as possible by the March family, when she mentions, “father reading, in his pleasant voice, from the wise old books which seemed rich in good and comfortable words, as applicable now as when written centuries ago […]" (p. 244).

And there it was—the “old books” are “wise” because they ring just as true today as they did when written. What else makes a classic if not that? Just as the “old books” were still valued in Alcott’s 1860s world, so her works, now old, are valued in ours. Of the countless books published over the course of history, only a relative few have stood the test of time, and I would suggest that those that have survived have done so because they contain such perception, such enduring observations of and commentaries on human nature that they are just as useful for our growth today as they were when penned. Or as Alcott says, they are “as applicable now as when written centuries ago.”

Sometimes the application points may require a little more effort to discover because of changes in language or syntax, but the concepts and expressions that cause the reader to say, “Yes! I recognize this character or world!” are those that make classics what they are. And in finding this reality about the nature of classics, we stumble upon another, greater reality about the nature of ourselves.

If classics are classics because they contain enduring concepts, then classics are made possible because enduring concepts exist. In other words, because human nature is constant, observations made about a human mindset in 431 B.C. can also be made of a human mindset in A.D. 2018. This is why words written hundreds or thousands of years before our time can still affect us so powerfully. (It’s also why the Lessons from Literature series on this blog is even possible.)

Classics help us see, then, that we really are all the same at the root of things. As humans, we all have the same nature—the same capacity for good because of God’s image that we bear and the same propensity for evil because of our inherited fallen-ness. Realizing this truth should help us demonstrate more kindness, empathy, understanding, and grace to our fellow humans and should help us to see that there is a Being who created us all. His design for us was perfect, and we’ve gone and twisted it until sometimes it’s almost unrecognizable, but the core of our being is still dependent on Him and receives its very definition from Him alone.

Enduring words and ideas can exist because there is an enduring God who is Truth itself. He is the standard by which all “truth” is measured, and He has made Himself and His truth known to us. What a blessing He has given us to be able to comprehend truth ourselves, to receive it from those who have gone before us, and to communicate it to those around us and those who are still to come.

Source: Alcott, Louisa M. Good Wives: Little Women, Part II. New York: Penguin, 1994.