God Is Good

There’s a phrase from the movie “God’s Not Dead” that I hear a lot.

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

This morning I read a quote from Corrie ten Boom:

Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.” There is an ocean of God’s love available—there is plenty for everyone. May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love—whatever the circumstances.

It comes to me as I’m praying for families in our church – a widow whose brother died from cancer; a daughter whose mother died; a grandfather fighting cancer, another whose heart is healing from surgery; parents with ungrateful children. I know these people, and I know they would assure me, “God is good.”

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

Really? Betsie – and these others died “according to his purpose”? The best answer to that was written by a loving husband and father who soon would be a widower, “If God Does Not Heal.” It is also in recognition that death awaits all of us:

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27 KJV)

We do feel that the judgment is faced in our lifetime, and that deliverance seems so very far away. Perhaps we should pay more attention to three men who were condemned to death. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego addressed the man who held their lives in his hands, and condemned them for their trust in God:

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:17-18 KJV)

Would we be as firm in our belief in His ability to deliver us, but if He did not, would we turn our back to Him? My intentions are to remain firm, and I pray for His strength that in what ever sorrow I face I know that He is good, singing with the psalmist:

I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. (Psalms 69:30 KJV)