"Hold onto the Good"

A phrase and theme has been resonating with me lately. I have been reading through Thessalonians in my Bible reading and came across a passage I just love 2:Thessalonians 5:12-24. One sentence just jumped out at me "Hold onto the good."

In the past month I have seen the good and the bad, and not necessarily in that order.
Fleeing from a hurricane - Bad
Finding your family and dog are pretty good at evacuating - Good
Seeing the devastation of Ike - Bad
Feeling overly blessed how unscathed our home was - Good
Having all our fences knocked down - Bad
Getting to meet neighbors who lived behind us - Good
Finding out your insurance won't cover your damages - Bad
Realizing you get to pay for it all yourself - Good?????


Sometimes bad and good flip order. A few weeks back I passed my Real Estate Exam - Good. Then in the afternoon a child (who shall remain nameless) ran into our remaining "iron" fence with our truck - Bad
Fence undamaged - Good
Truck - not so good
Celebratory dinner plans postponed - Bad
Learning to make a new kind of pizza with what we had in the house - Good
Having to the insurance company again for the 3rd time since May - Bad
Finding our deductible was lower than we thought - Good

So I have determined to "hold onto the good". It is VERY easy to sit down and dwell with the bad. I want to look for the good in situations and events and more importantly "hold on" to the ultimate good "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."

Seeing our minuscule retirement go down by 25% and counting - Bad
Clinging to God as my ultimate retirement plan - Good