I recently read a book on leadership written by Joe Sanfelippo, the 2019 national superintendent of the year, and a quote from a chapter entitled “Moving Forward Together” stopped me in my tracks.

He was relating a story about a high-performing softball coach who counseled her team with this idea: “Excellence means achieving at a high level even when things don’t go the way that you planned.”*

That seems kind of basic—but it boggled my mind. I rephrased that quote and wrote it on a sticky note on my desk this way: “Excellence doesn’t mean that nothing bad will ever happen.”

Christians can often fall into the false belief that if we are truly living “excellently” in line with Christ’s example, then nothing bad will ever happen. We think that if we go to church and hold our tongues and give offerings and don’t cheat on our spouse and take the garbage cans out for the neighbors, we can expect God to pump our lives full of harmonious relationships, bulging bank accounts, and perfectly fit bodies. Fair trade, right?

This belief—that following Jesus excellently means nothing bad will ever happen to us—has been around for millennia. An example of this is found in John 9:1,2, where it says, “As [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’”

The disciple’s question is a natural one. We ask it in the face of suffering too. When blindsided with incomprehensible grief or loss, thinking that our suffering must be because of something we did is understandable.

However, God does not think like us. He already knows the answer to every question that troubles us, and he does not treat us as even our best actions deserve (Psalm 103:10). If God was only just and not also loving, he would have wiped us off the face of the planet eons ago! He would have simply erased creation when Adam and Eve fell into sin, and he certainly wouldn’t have bothered to send his one and only Son to serve as a sacrifice for your sins and mine.

Instead of punishing us, God sent Jesus to be a punishment for us. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus won our salvation on a cross. Heaven is ours through the free grace and unfair love of God!

But how did Jesus answer his disciples? Why was that man born blind? Whose fault is it when bad things happen? Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned . . . but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).

Sometimes it’s no one’s fault when bad things happen. Sometimes tragedy just crashes into our lives because—incomprehensibly—God wants to shine his light through us toward others in a way that draws untold numbers of people to know his saving love. Romans 8:28 says it best: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” That includes the awful things that happen!

Later on in John chapter 9, Jesus miraculously heals that man who was born blind. The man is so grateful that he tells everyone he knows and doesn’t stop worshiping and praising God, even when he gets into hot water with the religious leaders (verses 6-41). His lifelong malady made him an effective evangelist later in life. Similarly, the problems we face today often give us unique platforms to proclaim God’s love and faithfulness. An “excellent” life of comfort and ease doesn’t usually motivate us to get up on a soapbox and testify about the goodness of God—but hard times sure do!

God’s definition of excellence is so different from the world’s definition. Even though our lives will always be marked by hardship, all we need to do is “be faithful, even to the point of death, and [he] will give [us] life as [our] victor’s crown” (Revelation 2:10). What can be more excellent than that?!

 Think about the struggles in your life. How has God used them to show his glory?

*Joe Sanfelippo, Lead From Where You Are (Impress, LP, 2022), 114.