God is good…Can we really say this?

Looking upon the devastation of recent earthquakes in Haiti and China, could you look into the eyes of the people and tell these broken people confidently, “God is good”.

What if a natural disaster happened in your neighborhood? You might be left with nothing because Insurance Companies have exclusions in their policies for these violent acts, “Acts of God”?

Are these natural disasters really Acts of God? What if we are attributing to God the very works of the Devil? I personally do not want to be standing before the God of the Universe accusing Him of being the Devil. Yet, I feel we so quickly seek to justify life’s disasters with a solution that we can wrap our minds around.

“God must be judging Haiti for their witchcraft, and God must be judging China for their “one child policy”. What about when one is sick? Oh, that is God teaching someone patience and perseverance.”

Our need for “leaning on our own understanding” has replaced our mandate to “Trust in the Lord with all our heart.” As a result, we have taken the nature of the devil and assigned it to God.

Scripture says that the job description of the devil is the devourer, the father of lies, the one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy. The description of Jesus, the image of the invisible God, is the one who has come to give life and life more abundantly. Jesus heals all our diseases and forgives all our sins. So why then do we think Jesus gives us cancer to teach us perseverance?

One scripture that has caused us confusion is Romans 8:28, “God works all things for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.” This scripture affirms that God is a better chess player than satan. No matter the attack satan makes against us, God has a chess move to triumph over satan. As a result, when someone gets sick, God can turn this for good. Through sickness, people can draw closer to God, learn patience, and perseverance. The mistake we have made is that because the “Outcome” (patience and perseverance) is good, we think the Origin (sickness) must have been good too, but we cannot confuse Outcome with Origin. Because of this misconception of Outcome and Origin, unfortunately, we have attributed to God sickness, which is the very work of the devil.

I’m slowly beginning to recognize my misconceptions of God's character and am beginning to worship God as He truly is, good. God is good and He is in a good mood. The wrath of God has already been poured out on Jesus on the cross. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation, to not count the sins of people against them. So why do we then continue to sit in judgment on others and on ourselves? We are to declare that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save it. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus came to declare life and life more abundantly.

I am confident that when I stand before the throne of God I am not going to have to apologize to God for believing that He is good. I have this feeling that I am more likely to stand before Him discovering He is so much more amazingly good than I could ever realized. After all, He does more than we can ever ask or imagine. He satisfies our desires with good things. He renews our youth like the eagles. He makes our paths straight. He turns our mourning into dancing and our weeping into joy. He gives us beauty for ashes. He restores the age old foundations. He restores the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. He crowns us with love and compassion.

God is still good and He is in a good mood.