Pet Peeves - AIN'T GOD GOOD
I'm sure you've heard it before, I
know that I have, usually after someone's promotion or the birth of a
child, or even that first date. "God is so good!" Yeah, right! Don't
get me wrong. I firmly believe in God's goodness, but to make it
contingent upon whether or not I am employed or prospering is to make a
mockery of the cross. God's goodness is innate and isn't dependent on
my prosperity. What happened? Was God in a bad mood on the day I was
born? You think I jest but think about it. If one takes the position
that God is good when good things happen, isn't the unspoken
implication also true, that God might not be so nice on those days when
bad things happen?
I had someone tell me once that it is always God's will to heal people of cancer, because God loves his children so much that he would never want one of them to suffer from such a horrid illness.. Poppycock! That's like me saying that God loves his children so much that he would never want them to live in a fallen world, a maxim that might be true, but here we sit anyway.
Please understand this. God's goodness is what brought him to the cross! Jesus loves me, this I know. My sins are forgiven, and one day he'll call me home! What else is there?
I had someone tell me once that it is always God's will to heal people of cancer, because God loves his children so much that he would never want one of them to suffer from such a horrid illness.. Poppycock! That's like me saying that God loves his children so much that he would never want them to live in a fallen world, a maxim that might be true, but here we sit anyway.
Please understand this. God's goodness is what brought him to the cross! Jesus loves me, this I know. My sins are forgiven, and one day he'll call me home! What else is there?
wwwhome-wherestorybegins.blogspot.com/
I agree with you you 100%--keep up your excellent work. You have updated your site since the last time I visited.
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Thanks, Sunny!
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Agree 100% but I beleive there is more to the story.....now if we could get heads around the notion that God's Kingdom is ultimtely better because of some degree of pain and suffering (i.e. He seems to be "efficient" with His miracles only to the extend needed to accomplish His ultimate purposes). It seems He uses people who become strong through suffering....to help accomplish His purposes. Perhaps He is measuring out His divine miracles in some cosmic allocation matrix. I would imagine God is pleased with the effectiveness of strong saints. And since we have free choice and are live in a world dominated by the 2nd law of thermodynamics, we can only become stronger saints for Him through suffering. Now that is a book :)
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WOW! -SC
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That's silly. God's not bad when bad things happen to us. He's just sleeping. Or dealing with someone else's problem, I'm sure.
. . . .
Anyway, I think Scripture does set a precedence for praising God when good things happen to us (If you really want examples, I'm sure I can come up with many). Why should we not recall his faithfulness or share in it with others, especially if it brings us to greater gratitude and love for God? That is, of course, in realization that God's goodness culminates at Christ's work on the cross. What may not have seemed "good" to Jesus in the bitterness and anguish of the cross would later turn to goodness in light of his exaltation, etc., etc. Yes, it is at the Cross that we see the depth of God's goodness. To begin to reverse the work of sin and condemnation in us is certainly a good and is something we Christians want to partake in at present. Otherwise, is our faith impotent in dealing with the reality we go through presently except in the form of a future hope? Is there nothing more than enduring life till we actually see life (in the fullest sense) or is there some victory we can and should enjoy now? You are certainly correct in the sense that what we look to won't be fulfilled until the eschaton, and I would not disagree with you there.
But, yeah, sometimes life just sucks. And some are given a rougher lot than others. I think particularly of those overseas who suffer though famine, war, persecution, exploitation, etc. Stuff that I have never had to go through. I wish I could always say that in light of that I'm always grateful for the good he gives me (knowing that it's so much better than what many will ever experience) and that I'm always gracious during the "bad times" in life (knowing that my "low" is not as bad as what some people have to go through on a daily basis), but that isn't the way people work. It is far too removed from me to be a present reality (and we have an inclination to forget so easily), so in my own skewed perspective, I try to be grateful and praise God in the context he has set me in.
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I agree totally. I think you hit the nail on the head!
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(cont.)
Now, I don't think you mean that we shouldn't praise God for the good things he gives us. Despite all the things you've gone through, I know you're grateful for many things in your life -- your wife, your daughter, your friends, the fact that you are able to do your work the way you want to... And you should be! =) Now, if your contention is against those who are only praise God when he does good things in their life and miss the bigger "good work" that he's already done, I can understand your feeling. But -- and call me nieve and optimistic if you like - I don't think many Christians (and I mean that in the Biblical sense as disciples of Christ and not merely in the nominal sense) completely overlook God's work on the cross as being the utmost good. They may not always keep that in mind and they may say "God is good!" too flippantly, but that doesn't really change the fact that he is good to them (and to many others who do not recognize it).
Maybe the reality is that in the brokenness of the human condition, we need the brokenness of life in order to be grateful of the "good" that God gives us, and that good that we experience is pretty subjective depending on our situation in life. That is, of course, not a justification of evil, but simply an observation of the way it works. But that's an entirely different discussion altogether.
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I did not thought about it in that way.
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I think it's the end of progress if you stand still and think of what you've done in the past. I keep on.
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You feel completely in control when you hear a wave of laughter coming back at you that you have caused.
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Though bitter, good medicine cures illness. Though it may hurt, loyal criticism will have beneficial effects.
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