I doubt this is original, but I can’t tell you where it came from if it’s not. I came up with it without hearing it from someone else, but like the saying goes: “The ancients stole all my best thoughts.” Somebody probably said it first. It’s a simple definition of what is good and what is bad. Here goes:

Good things move us closer to God, closer to heaven.
Bad things move us away from God, move us away from heaven.

That’s how a promotion at work can be bad, while a terminal illness can be good. Success can be bad, failure can be good. I guess the rub of it comes in the fact that we have to look a little harder at things to tell the difference. And sometimes we can’t really know; that’s when we have to trust that God is always working for good.