Don’t tell me God is good. Well, at least don’t tell me that when it’s attached to something like:
You got the job! (God is good!)
You closed on the house! (God is good!)
That car barely missed you at the intersection! (God is good!)
You’re carrying twins! (God is good!)
See where I am going with this? Because the reality is that if you believe God is good:
Then He’s good all the time.
Like when you lose the job. Or the house is foreclosed. Or your car is totaled.
Or the twins die.
And while I believe that to be true, because I believe the nature of God is unchanging… would you ever in a million years tell someone who just lost their baby to cancer: “Isn’t God sooooo good, though? Wow, didn’t He do it right?”
No. You wouldn’t. (And shouldn’t!)
Related: When Grief Takes Work And Time
I have such a hard time with people saying, “God is good!” in response to whatever good things happen to them.
Found a parking space, YAY GOD! Got a raise, YAY GOD! It’s a great hair day, YAY GOD!
As if it is sort of an obligatory thanks to an intangible entity in a bottle making all the good things happen.
Because for those of us who have had to hear, “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat,” or “There’s nothing we can do,” or even, “We’re sorry, we have to let you go,” what are we supposed to think?
God isn’t good?
I look at so many people I know from the last eight years—this eight years we’ve navigated life after losing our children and having to figure out where our faith and our reality converge.
I know many who just stopped believing in God at all, and you know what? I totally don’t blame them.
I hate it for them because I know what hope my faith brings me, but I honestly get where they are coming from.
Because when we, those who claim the good news of Christ, go around making Him seem as if He’s only good (or praised) when life is going good—we alienate so many people.
So many desperate people.
I’m not saying that the opposite of “God is good,” in response to something good happens means we should go around reminding people to ‘praise in the storm,’ when their worlds are crumbling.
Gracious, NO, do NOT do that either.
Related: There’s Always A Choice
Jesus didn’t tell Lazarus’s sisters to buck up and give thanks as their brother lay dead.
He cried. With them. He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead and still? He wept for his friend and with his friend’s family because it hurt.
Death hurts.
I’m also not saying that God does not deserve praise and gratitude and thanks for everything we have, are and that He does in this world.
I’m just saying that I’ve had to reconcile God being good despite the things happening in my life.
Despite the coffins and the beating hearts no longer beating… the cancers that stole and the lives forever changed in this hard world, I’ve had to figure out how God is good when you get to take your child home and my son is dead in the ground.
It’s not been easy, and if our calling in life is truly to love God and love one another…we can’t do it without being real. Honest about life being hard and that we will be heartbroken.
Honest that God isn’t just good because we get the job or the new house or the miraculous healing (those always sting the most with me).
He’s good because He grieves with us and mourns with us and walks with us as He redeems our pain and heals our hearts.
Related: Even On The Hardest Days; He’s Clinging To You
Tell people that, when you want them to know God is good.
Tell them that your world was shattered and He picked you up and kept you breathing.
Tell them that you didn’t know how you’d face another minute and He gave you the strength to do so.
Tell them you stood in church daring God to heal your heart, crying in the most pain and agony you’ve ever felt… and He gave you unimaginable strength and healing.
Tell them that He still does that. Daily.
That’s the God people need to know.
The everlasting, enduring One, regardless of the circumstance.
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Photo: Ben White/Unsplash
I’m small, but scrappy! I have a fierce passion for my family, friends and life in general…I’m a military spouse who has battled infertility for over 13 years, as well as the loss of two babies gone too soon. I love to laugh, and am grateful for every second I celebrate with the ones I love. You can find me at my blog Lori Does Maryland or on Facebook Lori Mullins Ennis or on The Twitter here Lori M. Ennis
There are times in Christian people’s lives when bad things happen but was God bad? No no no God is good all the time even when our circumstances are bleak we can rest assured God is still good and knows best just what we need to get thru any circumstance we are going thru. I hear what this article says and yes there are those who question God or can’t see Gods goodness in their time of trouble but don’t lose heart and make up your mind to know God is good no matter what happens. There’s an old song called “God on the Mountain” and you can find it on you tube sung by Lynda Randle.
I appreciate your comment. But, I also have to be honest in saying that while I don’t believe God is bad, it’s very easy to see how someone who relies on God to protect their children might think that if He doesn’t. Certainly non-believers, and even those of us who believe–bleak is a mild world when your baby has literally been ripped from your body and dies before you ever hold him. It takes more than making your mind up–though that is very important–but a support system that helps you through it and is honest and real with you about your faith and feelings.
I agree that God is good and yet expressing the sentiment is not always appropriate.
I would also like to draw attention to the way the language is constructed. To say God is good is to equate two things, God and goodness in a formula that would look like Good = good. However because language has nuances that when we make a statement such as God is good, we are trying to describe God and to do so we use our own understanding of goodness. Goodness then becomes relative to our experiences, and God is much bigger than circumstances. For the Christian, in the midst of tragedy we can be so entirely immersed in pain and despair that we have lost any grasp of what goodness feels like and therefore have lost the reference to a God who is described as good, because our entire world lacks goodness. The conclusion, if God is good, and there is no goodness in my life, then God is not in my life.
However, I believe that the statement, as awkward as it sounds, good is God, is much closer to the desired sentiment, and the one that you have expressed. This is in effect inverting the “formula” to good = God, which mathematically is identical but in language creates different nuances. Now the understanding of what is good is being defined by the never changing nature of who God is; a man, a shepherd, a lover, a creator, a helper, a friend etc. who will walk alongside me through anything.
In the midst of my overwhelming pain, if good is God and I have no goodness in my life then I shall have to inject more of God into my life.
…and somehow I do not see the phrase, good is God catching on anytime soon.
This was really beautifully written. Thank you.
Yes and I thank you both for giving me a new way to think and respond about the way I do believe
According to His Word we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and to grieve with those that grieve. That verse does not give us a pass to not rejoice with someone rejoicing because we are grieving, or, grieving with a person because we are rejoicing.
It is much easier to put aside our rejoicing to grieve with someone than to put aside our grief to rejoice with someone when we are grieving. Thats the hard one and the one we excuse ourselves from because we hurt. When we are grieving that is all we focus on. It is a very selfish time as we can only see what we have lost or going through that is painful. Most would say rightfully so. We can’t conceive of rejoicing nor of being expected to rejoice because we are in pain. We focus on ourselves and justify it because we are greiving and feel we shouldn’t have to “deal” with anything else.
We expect others to reach out to us instead of us to reach out to others. Others have to bear the full responsibility to say the “right” things to us except we do not even know what that is, but we still judge what they say and do (or don’t do/say) through the lens of that unbearable grief and usually find them lacking.
Our example of what we are to do is exemplified by who we are to be conformed to – Yeshua. When He was greiving and in the most unimaginable pain, dying and alone and most understandingly would be focusing on what He alone was going through, He thought of others first, before Himself. He gave Himself for us.
His gave us His Spirit enabling us and giving us the power to do as He did/does. We cannot do so in our own weak strength. But in His we can. It is doing so then, in our greatest pain, as He did, that we demonstrate His love and His hope, His resurrection- His power over death.
A study of suffering, trials and tribulations shows what such grows in us that rejoicing doesn’t , we are to exult in our tribulations. They produce righteous fruit in us – perseverance, proven character, hope, and faith, Romans 8:2-6. Also, 1 Cor 12:26, Col1:24, 1 Peter 4:13-16,19, Phil 3:1-11, Rom 8:17-18, .
We are not to be ruled by our emotions but by the Spirit. We do not grieve as those without hope. We comfort each other with the comfort we have received from Him.
“Consider it all joy my bretheren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have it’s perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing” James 1:2-4.
We are to be always encouraging each other towards Him and to be conformed to His mind, will and character, one in Him. Sadly and hearbreakingly we ALL will/ have grieve the physical death of those we love. Our loss of a loved one is no greater than another’s, nor is it any less. We look foreward to the day He will vanquish death and that will be a time of rejoicing!
Thank you for your comments. This really hit home for me and articulate something I’ve been trying for awhile.
The year I was pregnant with my first child: my grandpa had died 2 months before I got pregnant, my brother and his wife had a stillborn daughter the week I was was having my 20 week ultrasound, my brother-in-law (sister’s husband) was battling stage 4 cancer and ended up being put on respite care the day of my daughter’s birth. He died 3 weeks later. It was so difficult to be mourning myself, support my siblings in their mourning, but also celebrate the life God was growing. I had panic attacks after the death of my niece when I hadn’t felt my daughter move in awhile and couldn’t stop them till I felt something (never told anyone about them at the time). I worried and stressed if I showed too much joy that I might cause my family more pain.
But it was so good for my own heart when my brother came 2 days after she was born to hold her and celebrate her life. Or when we drove the 16 hours with a 4 week old to attend my brother-in-law’s funeral and the first thing my sister did was get her niece out of the car seat and show her around to all the family gathered. Yes, I needed to be there when they mourned, but I needed them to rejoice with me and over the new life.