Is God Actually Good When Life Is Not?
A question every believer must face
Perhaps one of the hardest lessons in the life of a believer is coming to terms with God’s goodness when our circumstances feel far from good.
As human beings, we’re often tempted to fill gaps in our understanding with black-or-white answers because the alternative—to sit with the uncertainty, the questions, and the pain—feels so uncomfortable.
That’s why, I think, when we experience pain and suffering, it’s easier to conclude that God isn’t truly good. Our finite minds have a hard time reconciling our human experience with the character and nature of an infinite God.
But Scripture tells us not to depend on or put our hope in what we’re able to comprehend. Instead, it says:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5–6, ESV)
A few years ago, when I was going through an extremely dark season, I had to wrestle with this question: Is God good even when life is not?
As I wrestled, what began to be revealed was my vast unbelief in who God says He is. My understanding of God’s nature was largely correlated to what I could see and feel and what was in the realm of my understanding.
But when God brought me through a season where everything seemed shrouded in darkness and nothing felt good, I was forced to face the question, “Can I believe He is who He says He is even when life is hard?”
In the hardest moment of my life, my faulty view of God no longer had legs to stand on.
While my circumstances did not change quickly, the most significant change occurred inside of me as I began to understand that a deep faith is rooted in the unchanging character of God and that it’s the truth of who He is that anchors us in the midst of our storms.
Because He is God and I am not, I do not get to pick and choose the characteristics of God I am most comfortable with or that are easiest for me to understand. If I could fully understand God, He would not be God—at least, not a God worthy of our worship.
Isn’t it in the hardest moments of life when we most want and need a God we can trust?
The good news is that’s exactly what we have. A God whose ways are so far above our own that even the most despicable and hopeless of circumstances can be turned into something beautiful.
His goodness is so far outside the bounds of what we know to be good.
And that truth gives us the courage and the faith to declare, “You are good in all your ways, LORD,” over any circumstance we face.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28, ESV)
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the LORD’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9, ESV)
