Monday 15 September 2008

Monday morning Inspiration # 45


I heard the story about a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he had grown up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!" One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition.

The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!" to which the king replied, "No, this is not good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail.

About a year later, the king was hunting in an area wherein he should have known not to hunt. Cannibals captured him and took them to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came close to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way.

As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. "You were right", he said, "It was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this." "No," his friend replied, "this is good!" "What do you mean, 'this is good!' How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?" "If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you, and I would have been eaten!
Everything that happens, happens only for good.

To read other Monday morning Inspirations click here

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

The silver lining... I guess sometimes it's really hard to see it :-)

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@ agnes

So true, its jus' that we got to believe whatever happens happens for good :)

Thanks for dropping by my blog, will visit your space soon :)

Nikhil Menon said...

u kno sumthing??

am tryin hard to take things this way des days..wat better than seein a post givin the same msg. :)

Cheers :)

Arv said...

LOL... was funny but at the same time good food for thought.. Cheers mate...

have a nice day...

Anonymous said...

Lovely story! I will remember this one!

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@multi menon

Glad to know this post helped you in its own way, "What ever happen, happens for good" is one saying I always believe in :)

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@multi menon

Glad to know this post helped you in its own way, "What ever happen, happens for good" is one saying I always believe in :)

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@arv

Thank you so much! :)

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@ms cris

Thank you so much! :)

Vasanthan said...

i have heard this story before. it was when i was still in primary 2 and represented my school in an inter-school Tamil story telling competition, some kid told this story.

it i forgot the last part. thanks for reminding it to me.

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@Vasanthan

Your welcome :)You always have some nice experiences to share :)

Lena said...

whatever happens, happens for a reason :)

Cess said...

I m a bit skeptical actually, I don t know if everything that happened to me his good, i m waiting for an answer at the end of week, if the answer is yes, then yes I can say that 'that is good' so i m waiting till then, i ll be back there soon ;)

Shionge said...

Yes, everything happens for a reason and what a nice story Sha :)

Shravan Vijayaprasad said...

I don't agree with you! Lets say I get a loan from someone and don't repay, what's the good in that!??

yea, I agree this is an inspirational story and I took it that way..

But at the end, life's full of positives and negatives and we've to overcome it!

Nikhil Menon said...

yo!!
u 've been tagged..do check out my blog...

ShantanuDas said...

Life is not that simple as taking a loan and not returning it that we find good and bad at every nook and corner.. like this. Still to answer one comment- the good in not getting back the loan maybe that he will learn how to assess his friends better next time.. and not remain gullible and get cheated on a larger scale..!

Ok.. I will add this now from my reading all these stories and listening to all such godly advices from my young age and from my own experience of life...

It is not that something happens that is always "Good" .. these sayings mean YOU HAVE TO FIND OUT THAT GOOD for you. Say you are in a bad situation and everything looks gloomy and bad, what to do? You have to make most of the situation and find out what way you can some good out of that situation so that your life keeps on improving -in any manner possible at that time.

God does everything for good we hear. No God wants us to SEARCH for that good in everything that happens to us. This is called proactive doing. You cannot just sit back and wait for the good to happen to you. You have to search out that "GOOD".

Because there is no such things pure luck. Luck is just a series of invisible doors opening & shutting around you. Those who are trained to see a door opening and grasps that moment to go through it, changes his life to that extent. So everything that happens to us is an opporunity to pass through the door that has opened which we may not be able to see. If we can see then we are called lucky or we find that 'GOOD'.

Raghavan alias Saravanan M said...

//Everything that happens, happens only for good.//

very very true! it may be hard to digest and accept the things at first, but not on a later part :)

Great!!

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

@Raghavan

Thank you so much :). This is one thing that keeps me going during the togh phases of my life and it always seems to be true that something is hidden inside the bad happening which you might eventually realise a little later :)

ravi said...

WOW.. too gud. I have read the stories from #60s till 45.. and all are awesom.

gud work and gud luck.

btw: whre do u collect these MMI-s form?