If God is good, then why?

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.