One of the more humbling experiences in life is becoming frustrated at a person or situation and immediately realizing you are without all the facts of the situation… and it makes you look very very bad.
You yell and maybe even honk at the car in front of you for driving slow, only to pass them and realize they’re dealing with screaming toddlers in the back. You grow impatient with your server and then realize they’re the only one working a full house. You become frustrated with a friend who is running late and then they arrive in tears, explaining they just received a call about the passing of a loved one. I’m sure we all cringe and shrink at the thought of a past experience where this has happened. When we didn’t have all the facts, but nonetheless expressed displeasure – maybe even anger – over the circumstances. I know I have done the same.
But then, when we finally see the full picture, we understand. We know now why our coworker is more foggy-brained on this particular day – it’s the day he lost his dad. We know why that mom can’t pick up another volunteer shift at church – she’s the only parent at home for five kids. We know why that college student always seems tired and to be running slightly late – they’re working three jobs to have housing and food. If a limited perspective causes frustration, a fuller perspective causes understanding, humility, and patience.
But that frustration of circumstances can even be applied to God.
Every Good Thing?
You [God] are good and do good…
(Psalm 119:68)
If you have had any encounters with Christianity, you may know that God is good, or at least that’s the claim. No one ever taught God how to be good, that is simply who He is (Holier Than Thou, page 14). We’re told then, as we see above, that all God does is good. We’re also told that everything good comes from God (James 1:17). If He is good, He can only do good. If He is perfect, He can only act perfectly. Namely, if God does something it must be good.
It probably is no surprise to you that I struggle with this concept.
College was rough for me. I had a good home and loved high school, so leaving that was not so fun to say the least. I wasn’t thrilled about the college I had chosen, wasn’t sure if my major was the best, and definitely would’ve loved to have more than one friend come with me to this new endeavor. It didn’t take long for me to discover my major was hard, I felt frequently alone, and that anxiety and depression were more present in my mind than I had anticipated. And though that might seem like a minute example compared to the serious pain and suffering of the world, for an eighteen-year-old girl alone in her dorm room it was very serious. In those moments and many more, every feeling denied that God’s actions were good.
I know I’m not alone. Whether death or loneliness or work struggles or health concerns, it is very hard to believe every action of God is good. And we’re not the first to wrestle with this either.
In Psalm 73, we see Asaph, a Levitical worship leader, say that God is good to Israel… and then there’s a huge “but.” He vividly describes watching the wicked succeed, the evil prosper, and the prideful do just fine in life. When he was “pure in heart,” others wore “violence… as a garment” (v. 1, 6). Complaint after complaint he piles in verses four through fifteen, ending with:
… when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task…
(Psalm 73:16)
How could a good God let this go by? How could this God’s actions be good?
Not Yet Finished…
It always stuck out to me that God calls the unfinished work of creation “good” (Genesis 1). At the end of every single day, God calls what He has made “good.” That brings up a couple of questions to me: why did He call the unfinished work good? And why didn’t he just complete it in one day?
For me, I can easily see a finished project as good. At the end of a work or school assignment, we can call the work good. At the conclusion of a party, one can say it was a good celebration . Even at the end of suffering, I can very often see how it resulted in good. Looking back at my college career, I am very glad I went to school where I did and studied what I studied. It led to countless friendships and growth beyond what I can say. But during the suffering – when the hard times are unfinished – how is that good? How are those actions good? If God just got the result in “one day,” so to speak, the suffering and waiting wouldn’t have been there. To me, that would be a good work.
It’s not just us and Asaph that has the question. Job asked the same thing (Job 7:11-16). And we see times when Jesus doesn’t heal immediately either. Demons were slow to come out of the man Jesus encountered at the country of Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20). He healed the blind man in two parts (Mark 8:22-26). It seems then that God is sometimes slow to finish a work, and that is still somehow called good. The waiting and suffering in between is still good.
How do we reconcile these acts as good when the pain in them is present? Back to Psalm 73.
But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
(Psalm 73:16-17)
Asaph came to the answer: be near God.
But Still Good
For me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
(Psalm 73:28)
The most shocking statement I believe I’ve read was “He arranges, good God that He is, the perfect amount of pleasure and pain to keep us near Him..” (“God of All Goodness” by Scott Hubbard). That’s crazy! What would make him say something like that?
What Asaph’s words illuminate is the captivating truth that God is our good. The presence of the Lord holds joy (Psalm 16:11). There is no good apart from Him (Psalm 16:2). Like we talked about in the previous article, goodness is not just a vague word but full satisfaction. God is good.
In the middle of unfinished work, suffering, and waiting, goodness is there because God is always there (Psalm 139:8-10).
Now back to that limited perspective. I don’t know the particulars on why God allows suffering. I don’t know why He has us wait. I don’t know why He seems to be slow or let things slide sometimes. I am not talking about intellectual reasons, those I have. But the exact why? What I do know is that if I had the capability of understanding – if we could see the full picture – we would know there was no better way to run the world. Every act of His is planned, every act of His is purposeful, and every act of His is good. We might not see the full picture, but we see Him. And that is enough goodness to last for eternity.
Resources
- “Goodness and Me” by Andrew Wilson
- “Will God Hurt Me and Call It Good?” by John Piper
- “Why Does Jesus Heal the Blind Man in Two Stages in Mark 8?” by Robert Plummer
- Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund
- Holier Than Thou by Jackie Hill Perry
Overwhelmed 