Monday, February 17, 2014

Is God Really Good?

I hear all the time "if God is so good, why do bad things happen?" I think there is a HUGE problem with our view of God. We paint Him as this loving, kind, good, gracious God. He is. God is all of these things. However, God is MUCH, MUCH more.

Did you know that God is jealous?
(Exodus 20:5, 34:14; Deuteronomy 4:24, 5:9, 6:15; Joshua 24:19)

Did you now that God gets angry?
(Isaiah 30:27-28; Exodus 32:9-10)

Did you know that God knows He is the best thing for us? Did you know that because of that, He requires that He be our number 1? Did you know that when He isn't our number 1, He will do whatever it takes to draw us back to Him, because He loves us that much?

God doesn't need us. He is self-sufficient (Acts 17:25). Just because He doesn't need us, doesn't change the fact that we need Him. Desperately. He knows that. He knows that we can't survive without Him.

God longs for us to "remain in [Him]" because He knows He is the best. He knows He is the only One. This is not egotistical. This is not a puffed up pride. This is simply because He is the only One. Because He is the only One, He knows it. Because He knows it, He would NOT be loving if He didn't do everything in His power to draw us to Him. He would be unloving if He left us to ourselves, if He didn't show us the error of our ways and require our complete and total devotion.

Why do bad things happen? Maybe, just maybe it is BECAUSE God is good and not in spite of that fact. Maybe we give Satan too much credit for the "bad" things that take place. Instead of saying, "it's just the evil world we live in", maybe we should say "Have I wandered away from God, even slightly?" Maybe the bad things that are happening are because God is trying to get our attention.

Please, please, please hear me! God does not WANT bad things to happen to us. Psalm 56:8 says, "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." God grieves when we grieve.

He doesn't WANT bad things to happen to us. He does cause them though. Lamentations 3:31-33 says, "For the Lord does not abandon anyone forever. Though He brings grief, He also shows compassion according to the greatness of His unfailing love. For He does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow." To the world, to most Christians, that doesn't sound like a good God. To me, that sounds like a great God!

The death of a child, losing a home in a fire, terminal illness . . . those are terrible, horrible, painful, life-altering things. But are they bad? Seen in and of themselves, yes. Seen in light of God trying to draw us to Himself, no. See, God knows that though the pain of these things is immense, unbearable, it is nothing compared to the pain of life and eternity without Him.

Though God grieves when we grieve, though it hurts Him to cause us pain, He is willing because He is a kind and loving God. He doesn't want to "send" anyone to hell. (Btw, God doesn't send anyone to hell, but that is another post for another day!) He causes these circumstances in our lives because He is "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

*Sometimes bad things happen because of the evil world we live in. Sometimes they happen because God wants to remind us that He is in control of all things. Sometimes they happen so we can be a witness to someone we will come into contact with. Just because bad things happen doesn't mean we have wandered from Him. However, sometimes that is the case, and I think we've turned a bind eye to that in order to "prove" that God is good. I think it's time we looked at this side of our God. He is oh so much more!*

Yes, God is good. A thousand times, yes! It just doesn't always look the way our definition of "good" says it should.

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