God is good. Most people reading this have heard this phrase many times through their Christian School
Ally just got home from school. She had had a rough day with a big pile of homework left to do that night. Closing the door, she starts to complain about how much homework she has. Then, she sees her parents standing there very seriously. They sit down and tell her that her aunt had just died that day. Ally was devastated. Her aunt had been in and out of hospitals for years for heart problems. Every time she came out just fine, so Ally never gave a thought to it. Suddenly, her aunt was dead because her heart had failed completely.
She ran up to her room and cried. How could He? How could God just take her aunt like that? How could God be good?
Ally is looking at things short term and self-centered. I remember last year B.H. was my Bible teacher. He asked a question that really had me stumped. It was: “Say I come up to you and ask, ‘How can God be good?’” Classmates started spinning out answers, but our Bible teacher was always able to defend it with something. The problem was that every time he questioned our answers he would reply with “I” or “you” or “my aunt.” All of this dealt self-centered or “horizontal” (looking through people standers) as Hunter would say instead of vertical (God and his glory).
Finally, someone said, “Well, it’s not about you. It’s all about God.”
That was the correct answer. We are nothing. Only by God’s grace are we saved through faith. God has every right to dame us from his presence forever, but instead he gave us the chance to have a relationship with him by taking our sin, which was what was separating us from him, on the cross.
Until you realize that God being fair means that he has to punish sin and that you don’t deserve anything created by him (which is everything we see) and a relationship with him, then you will never get the concept of God being good. Everything, including the death of a loved one, is for his glory. Somehow, whether we see it or not, it is in his perfect plan.
Remember when Adam and Eve first sinned by eating the fruit that they were told not to eat? God knew that they were going to sin because he is Sovereign. It wasn’t a mistake. God is able and chooses to use sinful people to work out his will.
There was a small example that I remember that my mom did when I was little. She asked Justin to come up. She handed him a quarter and said, “That quarter is yours. You can do what you want with it. Now, can I have it back?”
“No,” Justin said.
So, Justin got to keep the quarter, but if he had given it back, my mom was planning to give him two quarters back. When we give our entire life to God, we will always get more than we deserve back in return. But, say you are a “really good Christian.” You obey your parents, do you devotions, and have a good relationship with God. Suddenly, a loved one dies; your parents lose money and can’t afford much of anything.
This seems like God is taking everything away from you and you don’t get anything back. Here, you are looking horizontal. If you look vertical, you’ll see that when you die, none of that will matter. If you truly believe that God is good, you also know that he has given you spiritual riches beyond compare and a relationship that God keeps perfectly. You have more rich than you can imagine! Use them!
