These
past months have been tumultuous, difficult and very painful. Eight short
months crammed with a season of category 5 hurricanes bearing down on me and my
family one after the other. It seemed like no sooner had the devastating
landfall of the first hurricane hit than another then another then yet another
and another followed.
And
perhaps at no other time have I been confronted so much with the thought or
question "If God is good, then why?...why did He allow my 21 year old
nephew to take his life, why did He allow my baby nephew to not live past his
first hour, why did He take my sister's mother when she had already lost so
much, why was it my health failed badly and I needed urgent heart surgery, then
as if we haven't been through enough why did my dad die so unexpectedly, he
wasn't that old?
Confronted
by that old lie "If God is good then why?"
It
is a lie and it would be so easy to allow life to drain my beliefs from me, because
I, along with most everyone else, like to avoid pain and difficulties and to
feel good. Yet, life often does not feel so great. Life with it's pain and hurt
is unavoidable. I do not think Jesus offered a life with no suffering,
christianity isn't a bubble in which we float though life unscathed.
I do
believe God is good and I do believe He gives good things to those who love
Him. He is good and He has triumphed over evil yet that does not mean there is
no evil, He gives peace in the midst of life's fiercest storms but that does
not mean there are no storms.
I
would go so far as to say the only good thing in life that’s guaranteed is the
Cross of Calvary, if I dare to believe anything else I will be surely
disappointed.
To
my cries for a life of eases and assurances and back-up plans with no
suffering, Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow Me.." Follow
Him into tomorrow when there is no guarantee another hurricane is not on its
way, follow Him when there is no guarantee the diagnosis will be health, follow
Him when there is no guarantee a job will be there tomorrow, or there will be
enough to pay the mortgage. Follow Him when the only assurance is the cross.
Follow Him because of what He has done, because He bridged the gap and made a
way for me to have eternal life, because the only victory over pain and loss is
the sure and guaranteed hope that Jesus makes all things anew.
If
God is good, then why? God's goodness is not affected by this world's storms,
by our human frailties and brokenness. God has proved His goodness though His
grace and mercy through His unmerited favour towards us at the Cross. That is
the real wonder of God, He is good because He is God and He graciously proved
it at the Cross.
And
that is the only truth I can hold on to as hurricane after hurricane has made
landfall in my life.