Yeah, Though I Walk - God is Good

In 1999 a relationship ended abruptly and with a great deal of pain. The grief and distress I experienced over this loss also brought to the surface some of those same questions I had wrestled with previously. Why? Why did bad things happen to good people? Who is this God I claim to serve and love?

Deep soul searching and study of Scripture led me on a path that first went down into an honest exploration of my view of God and into my doubts and then to a realization that changed my perspective.

Had someone asked me if God was good, I would have said yes. During this time of soul searching, I realized that at the very core of things I doubted God’s goodness. I doubted that a God who was good would let these things happen. While I believed that he was mostly good, I couldn’t understand how He let these bad things happen if He was fully good. I came to realize that there is no middle ground. Either He is good or He is not. If He is not, then He could not be God. 

The Bible describes God as pure, holy, righteous, and good. This is His moral character. The Bible describes Satan as evil. I realized that if God was evil in even the tiniest of ways, then He was not absolutely good, pure, holy, or righteous as the Bible declares Him to be. If that were true, He could not be God. If He was not good, then we were left only with an evil ruler of the universe and both God and Satan would be evil. We would be left with nothing truly good. As I processed this and worked through it, I realized that I believe there is good in the universe, in the world AND I believe there is evil. Better stated I believe there is a Good God ruling the universe and an evil Devil seeking to overthrow him. I realized that if that were a true premise, then God had to be 100% good.

If God were 100% good, then He could do no evil. Nothing that comes from His hand is evil.

But how does a God who is 100% good even allow evil?

Despite knowing how things would go, despite knowing that His only Son would have to become a human being, suffer, and die to rescue humankind from the clutches of evil, He chose to give human beings the ability to choose. The ability to choose God or reject Him, the ability to choose good or evil, the ability to choose to love or hate, the ability to have a true will of our own, was so very important that God created us with it, despite knowing all that would happen because of it.

God’s design is not for evil. God’s design is for 100% good and He is working out His plan to bring that about one day. In the meantime He has allowed evil to enter the world, to exist because that is what humankind, in Adam and Eve, chose. God valued us having an ability to choose so very highly. Humankind chose to disobey, chose evil and every second of every day we experience the consequence of that choice and of our own continued choices. One day God’s purposes will be accomplished and He will establish a place where there is only good and where we choose only good. Evil will be eradicated and good will prevail.

In this I found the answer to my question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

The reality is there are no morally pure people, only imperfect people, experiencing the consequences of sin in this world . . . BUT ONE DAY this will change. One day we will live in a perfect place where death and sin and pain and sorrow are no more. 

What do you think it will be like to live in a perfect, good place where evil has been eradicated?

Day 15: Working together for Good

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible contains several of my favorite verses. One of those verses is Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things 

God works for the good 

of those who love him, 

who have been called 

according to his purpose.

• "And we know . . . " we can have confidence and an unwavering faith.

• "that in all things God works for the good . . . " ALL THINGS, the things we don't like, the things we question, the things we absolutely cannot make sense from . . . God does not call all things good, but He promises to bring good from even the worst of circumstances.

• "of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." God's children can rest in the truth that God will bring good out of even the worst of circumstances. 

Day 5: Why? An Answer

Yesterday, I shared a brief history of what led me ask the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I have read and heard many answers to this question, some helpful, some . . . not so much.

What I am going to share is AN answer to this question. Although it is an answer that has given me peace through many losses, I also want to say that I know this is not THE ultimate answer, there are pieces missing still. I'm okay with that for now because I am still on the journey. What I have to offer is what I have learned in the face of my own loss and heartache.

The other thing I hope is that my conclusion does not seem overly simplistic, because I don't believe there IS a simple answer. I recognize that this question is usually asked with great anguish and turmoil and that finding peace and resolution is a hard fought journey that takes time.

The foundation of my answer came in the realization that God is good. G.O.O.D. Often we think of good as well-behaved, pleasant, nice, beautiful or high quality. However, God is so much more than that. With God, good refers to his moral character. He is holy and righteous, absolutely without evil. There is no evil in Him and He has not been tainted by evil in any way. He is good and all He does is good.


How did evil enter this world? God created a perfect heaven and a perfect earth. He created angelic beings to serve Him and human beings to enjoy the Earth and to experience intimate relationship with Him. One angel led a rebellion and declared himself equal to God. This angel was cast out of heaven with one third of the angels. He is the being known today as the devil. This same angelic-being-gone-bad influenced the first man and woman to disobey God. With that choice to disobey, evil, death, and destruction entered the human experience. The world and all that is in it was contaminated by sin. God has been at work ever since to redeem what is and to restore what was lost.

The second key factor is that God gave human beings the gift of choice. God did not create evil, nor does He cause evil or sin. Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Because sin entered the world, so did disease and death and many other horrible things.

The one question I want to ask God when I reach heaven is, "Why was it so important for us to be able to choose? You knew all that would happen, all the pain and destruction, yet it was so very important to You that we be able to choose. Why?" I have heard answers. The most compelling to me is that God didn't want robots or puppets, but creatures like Himself who could choose - choose to love, choose right, choose good. Still, I long to hear from God Himself the answer to this question.

Human beings and all that dwell on planet Earth ARE bent and broken, tainted by sin. Our noblest motives, our most altruistic actions, our best relationships are all tainted by the evil that entered this world so many centuries ago. (C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy helped me to understand this in a vivid way. Great reading by the way!)

Sometimes bad things happen as a result of human choice. A person chooses to drive while "under the influence" or while texting and a tragic accident happens. People engage in dangerous activities and a rope breaks, a tree gets in the way, a tire blows and life is irrevocably altered. Government officials make poor political choices and an entire country suffers because of it. 

Sometimes bad things happen as a result of disease that entered the world as a consequence of sin. People battle illness and sometimes the battle is won and sometimes it is lost, each the result of a myriad of interwoven factors such as physical condition, treatment options available, the patient's will to fight, the severity of the disease, and the skill of the doctors.

Sometimes bad things happen because all of creation is under the curse of sin. A tsunami or earthquake destroys property and claims lives, a drought causes crops to fail leading to hunger and malnutrition. Even these "acts of nature" are not what God created the world to be, but what it has become because of the damage of sin.

Bad things happening is the expected outcome of living in a world bent and broken by sin.

Our HOPE is that God will make good out of the bad. He is good. He can only produce good. Bad things will happen in life because of sin. But God promises to work those bad things into something good for those who love Him.

One of my favorite authors, George MacDonald (contemporary of Charles Dickens and admired by C.S. Lewis), has a theme flowing through his writings - that God wants to make us good. I think that perhaps too often we look outside ourselves for the good that we would like God to bring about, when He desires to bring about good IN us, to make us good. 

One of the good things God brings about is building our character as we learn to respond to bad things in ways that reflect Christ. Another good God produces is to strengthen our faith and to help us come to know Him better. God may also work good by helping people to know Christ, by bringing truth to light so that health can be found, by giving a deeper appreciation for life and loved ones, by teaching lessons that change the course of life in a positive direction. The possibilities are endless for what God can do to bring good out of the bad things that happen.

Our other hope is heaven, that one day we will live in a place where mourning and tears are wiped away, where bad things no longer happen. We have the hope that we will forever dwell with God in a perfect place and in unity with God and mankind. In heaven we will see the final redemption of what has been lost and restoration to what was intended to be.

May you find hope and peace on your journey and may you have vision to see the good that God is bringing about.

What are your thoughts about all this?

What good things have you seen come out of bad situations?

Metamorphosis

A caterpillar enters the chrysalis and an amazing transformation takes place. A caterpillar enters and a butterfly emerges. Sometimes someone is tempted to speed up the process, to release the butterfly from its chrysalis without allowing it to struggle. When this happens, the butterfly dies. The butterfly needs the struggle to grow strong.

The last four and a half months have been a time of struggle. The central figures in my support system have been stripped away. Chaos, change, and loss have come in wave after wave.

The story of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to butterfly comforts me. I am reminded that God can bring beauty out of ugliness and pain. I am reminded that sometimes the struggle is crucial to our transformation. As we wrestle to navigate through paths that are unfamiliar and sometimes treacherous, God is at work. He is taking things that the enemy of our soul intends for evil and He is producing good. He is taking what is ugly and destructive and He is transforming it into good. The Lover of our soul is at work to produce fruit, beauty, growth, and strength in the midst of the struggle.

Yet, God does not do this work in a vacuum, He asks for our cooperation. He asks us to obey, to seek Him, to follow His lead. As we surrender ourselves to Him, as we do what He asks of us, as we seek and understand His purposes and cooperate with Him, He transforms us. He changes us not from caterpillars to butterflies, but from humans living in the flesh to His children who are more and more like Christ. Often the good that God is producing is not perfect circumstances, blessings of wealth, or even an easy road, the good that God is producing is the life of the Spirit in us . . . life that is truly life.

And we know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)