Through The Bible in a Year - February 25, 2026

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16

When Tiger Woods put on the green jacket after his 2019 Masters victory, he said two words: “It fits.”

As though the coat had been specially tailored for him. But what if all he had experienced prior to that victory – the news of the family betrayals, the DUI, the embarrassment, the broken promises, the body breaking down, all the pain – also fit? Could it possibly be that it all fit in a way he never wanted or perceived, but God was designing for him?

That green jacket was the convergence of the many colors of his past. And maybe, just maybe, we were seeing a better man as a consequence of it all – God taking what was evil and using it forspiritual good that was far more important and lasting than anygreen jacket.

This is what God does. He takes twisted vines and with an artist’s hand turns them into baskets of beauty.

Yes, the baskets of our lives have sometimes been formed from disappointments, failures, and shame. The shattered marriage, the addictions, the unfulfilled dreams, the lost job, the test failed,or friendships broken. Everything we’ve done wrong and everything done wrong to us.

God bundles it all up and says, “What you meant for evil and what was done to you in evil, I mean for it to be the means by which you will hold and treasure the good I intend for you—to save your soul eternity, to give you life with the hope that no evil is the final chapter for you, and to bring you before me in eternity with nothing but joy in what I have done for you.”

Respond: What’s in your basket today? What pain, what regret, what twisted vine needs to be given to God’s hand? Believe that He can take it all and use it for good—for your redemption and for showing his salvation to those whose lives yours touches.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, take my basket—all the twisted, ugly vines of my life. The evil I’ve done and the evil done to me. The pain, the regret, the shame. Bundle it all up and use it for good – for my good and for the good of those whose lives my life touches. In Jesus’ name, amen.