I have been preaching for years that our good God is telling a good story with a good ending. I will go to my grave believing this. Jesus’ whole life was a life lived with childlike trust in his Father’s goodness. You cannot have an intimate walk with God unless you believe God is good.
How many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus really believe that God is good all the time? If we are honest there are times when we are tempted to doubt God’s goodness.
If God is good….Why did he???
If God is good….Why hasn’t he???
If God is good….Why won’t he???
These types of questions illustrate what the Apostle Paul calls “the carnal mind.” We imagine the best life possible, based on worldly comforts and benefits, and then we imagine it is God’s job to give us those good things.
The carnal mind is the one that hears “God is good” and secretly thinks, “Let me sift through the evidence of my experience and then I’ll decide if that’s true. What we need instead is the humble attitude that says to God, “I am in no condition or position to judge you or your character.”
If we are following the example of our Lord, we will say, “No matter what happens, I will stand on the truth that God is good and I will wait for God’s goodness to play itself out even if I have to wait until I get to heaven.”
Think about it. What helped Jesus accept and embrace the cross? Was it not his unwavering belief in God’s goodness? In Hebrews 12:2 we read, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Friend, are you tempted to doubt God’s goodness because of some unanswered prayer? Some great loss? Some great pain? Don’t fall into that trap. Be like Jesus. He refused to doubt and chose rather a childlike confidence in the goodness of God. It is he who taught us that our God is a good God who is telling a good story with a good ending.
I love what C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, GOD IN THE DOCK. He says, “In Hamlet a branch breaks and Ophelia is drowned. Did she die because the branch broke or because Shakespeare, the author, wanted her to die at that point in the play?” We come close to believing that God has failed in some way when someone dies. But Scripture says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Revelation 14:13).
Why haven’t we come to believe that yet? Revelation 14:13 doesn’t say “Precious in his sight is the death of his saints who live pain free lives and die in their sleep at the age of 100.” It says “saints” and that includes our little 4-year-old Alexandra who went home to heaven in 1993. Was her death “good” in the temporal sense? No, of course not. We have missed her madly these 22 years.
However, because we believe that our God is a good God telling a good story, we will wait in faith for the good ending. The worst thing that happens to us will not be the last thing to happen to us. Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, is the last thing to happen to us. He will write that final paragraph and I can hardly wait to see how things end. Can you hold on with us till then?
Richard
I love this. God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.
God is so good all of the time. Just what I needed to hear at just the right time. His timing is perfect.
What a beautiful message. One to remember and cling to when thing get rough.
Just trust and obey for there is no other way—Just trust and obey. Many of us can not just trust, because we think that we know how to handle this situation, No need to bother God with this, I’ll take care of it myself. [Wrong its a failure usually] Even if you are right; that may not be the way God had intended to go—So you get it all wrong. Next time
When we become very humble and pray about the problem, asking God what we should do; or is this a turning point intended to point me in the right direction. God is Good!