Is God only good when the outcome is?
When the illness is in remission, we say “God is good.” When the pay raise comes, we announce “God is good.” When the university admits us or the final score favors our team, “God is good.” Would we—and do we—say the same under different circumstances? In the cemetery as well as the nursery? In the unemployment line as well as the grocery line? In days of recession as much as in days of provision? Is God always good?
Most of us have a contractual agreement with God. The fact that he hasn’t signed it doesn’t keep us from believing it.
I pledge to be a good, decent person, and in return, God will . . .
save my child.
heal my wife.
protect my job.
(fill in the blank) ____________________
Only fair, right? Yet when God fails to meet our bottom-line expectations, we are left spinning in a tornado of questions. Is he good at all? Is God angry at me? Stumped? Overworked? Is his power limited? His authority restricted? Did the devil outwit him?
When life isn’t good, what are we to think about God? Where is he in all this?
At some point, we all stand at this intersection. Is God good when the outcome is not? During the famine as well as the feast? The definitive answer comes in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the only picture of God ever taken. Do you want to know heaven’s clearest answer to the question of suffering? Look at Jesus.
He pressed fingers into the sore of the leper. He wept at the death of a friend. He stopped his work to tend to the needs of a grieving mother. He doesn’t recoil, run, or retreat at the sight of pain. Just the opposite. He didn’t walk the earth in an insulated bubble or preach from an isolated, germfree, pain-free island. Trivial irritations of family life? Jesus felt them. Cruel accusations of jealous men? Jesus knew their sting. A seemingly senseless death? Just look at the cross. He exacts nothing from us that he did not experience himself.
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HEAVEN’S CLEAREST ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF SUFFERING? LOOK AT JESUS.
Why? Because he is good.