When Painful Things are Good

And he said, "It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him" (1 Samuel 3:18). God was going to totally wipe out Eli's name from before his altar of service. Eli's sons had lived corrupt lives (profaning the Lord's sacrifices and taking prostitutes) and God was going to bring justice to this house for the flippant way they had treated service to God. Upon hearing this from the boy Samuel's lips, Eli replied in the affirmative...not only this, but acknowledging that the Lord can and will do whatever he sees fit. Not only this, but we read in chapter 2 that it is good to the Lord to put people to death (even those that carry the name priest). "But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death" (1 Sam. 2:25). Too many times we think that death is something that God does not know how to deal with adequately. People try to comfort people with the goodness of God, but they do not acknowledge that the Lord is the one who creates and destroys. There is nothing outside of his hand.