"This is good"

In her book Lessons for a Super Mom [my mom’s book, not mine], Helen Middlebrooke tells this story that a friend of hers shared in Sunday school. While it isn’t specifically Christian, it does effectively remind us of how God is sovereign and how he works everything out for the best.

A king had a loyal and faithful cupbearer. The king trusted him completely. The two were friends. But the cupbearer had an interesting habit. In the most dire of circumstances, his first response was always to say, “This is good.”


One day, the king had a black-powder rifle. The cupbearer loaded it incorrectly and when it fired, it blew off the king’s thumb. The cupbearer said, “This is good.” Enraged, the king threw his friend into the deepest dungeon.


A year later, the king was traveling in Africa when a tribe of man-eaters captured him. As he was about to be cooked, the tribe’s leader noticed he had no thumb. Because they would not eat anything imperfect, the king was released.

He hurried home and to the dungeon. He was filled with overwhelming thankfulness, for he realized that had he not lost his thumb, he would have lost his life. The king
released his friend and could not apologize enough for having imprisoned him.


All the cupbearer said was: “This is good; this is good.”


“How can you say that being locked in a dungeon was good?!” the king demanded.


“Sire,” the cupbearer said, “I am your cupbearer. I am always at your side. Had I not been in prison, I would have surely been with you when they discovered your thumb missing. I would have been eaten instead. So this is good.”