"She was a Christian, but she was distraught about her daughter's death all those years ago. 'Why would God take my child?' she asked me. I was able to give her comfort. 'It wasn't God's will,' I assured her. 'God never wills that kind of thing.' She felt much better."
It was an actual discussion I heard. It was an actual position that was taken. And, I'm fairly certain, it was not a minority view. The speaker was a Christian, and I'm sure that many agree. God doesn't will that kind of thing.
I am, however, completely baffled by "She felt much better." Years ago a youth pastor I know was asked to officiate at a funeral of some friends. He wrote out his planned remarks and asked me to review them. He said much the same thing. I told him, "You can go with that if you want, but, please, please, don't use that line of thinking at my funeral or any funeral I might be at. Such a notion would be devastating to me." He was somewhat surprised. "Because," I told him, "you're telling me that God lost, that poor God with all His power and sovereignty and omniscience and all just couldn't manage to stop it. He couldn't have healed him or her or He couldn't have prevented the accident or hostile action or whatever. He was not God in this situation. And that provides you with comfort, perhaps, but it terrifies me. When else will He fail? Given the current death rates (100%) and add in the current tragedy rates (a whole lot), I'd have to guess that God fails a whole lot. I don't find comfort in that."
I read recently of a Christian who lost a daughter. He told God, "You had no right to take my daughter from me!" He said he didn't want to hear another well-meaning Christian quote Romans 8:28 to him. This was not comforting. I understand. This is in the heat of the moment, in the intense emotional response of the day. He also said it passed and he recovered and he learned to love the promise that God was always producing good, even in the hard times, but I think we miss that ... badly. Even without the emotional trauma of a lost loved one, we think, "Unpleasant things like that are not God's will." Because that exonerates God, I suppose. But God says something different. God says (this is an actual quote from God) "I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things" (Isa 45:6-7). Paul claims that God "works all things according to the counsel of His will" (Eph 1:11). That doesn't leave room for an exception. The psalmist says, "Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases" (Psa 115:3). That would, quite obviously, include all of what He pleases. God says, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose'" (Isa 46:9-10). "All My purpose" would mean all of His purpose, wouldn't it? Solomon wrote on the subject, "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand" (Prov 19:21) and "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps" (Prov 16:9) Sounds like God actually intervenes in human choices. On and on it goes. Scripture us stuffed with these kinds of claims.
The problem, I think, is not that the Bible is unclear. The problem, I'm relatively sure, is not that it's not God's will. The problem, I am certain, is us. The problem is that we don't get it. We think that God's view of "good" is our own ... and it's not. Not always. We think that "good" includes "pleasant" and excludes "unpleasant," includes "comfortable" and excludes "pain." We want good and we're pretty sure that what we want is good and God, being a good God, would certaintly, then, want what we think is good. God has declared otherwise. The problem is not that God doesn't want good for us; the problem is we don't always know what that is.
The question, then, is simple. It is not, "Is God good?" He is absolutely good (Psa 136:1). He is the definition of good. (According to the dictionary, the word "good" comes from the Old English word for "God". In English God literally is the definition of good.) The question is "Will I trust Him?" Will you agree with God that what He does is good, or if He does it and you don't like it will you need to find an excuse for Him? Will you require that God conform to your definitions and values, or are you willing to work toward changing your definitions and values to match His? Like He commands (Rom 12:2)?
10 comments:
I see this as a big God little god contradiction. You describe a big God. But Man creates a little god, a therapeutic god, a god that exists solely for his benefit. Then when something happens that's not all that beneficial, or downright injurious, it's time to bring out the excuses to explain why the self-created, made-up god couldn't carry the day when it counted most. The word providence is a foreign word with this god except for parking spaces and the occasional pay-raise.
I get it. Someone used the term "God to me." You know, "God to me is like this." Only He's not. And it's wrong. And it doesn't work. But, hey, they believe in God, right?
...or worse, "my god", as in "My god would never do that."
That is precisely the intent of "God to me" -- "My God." It makes God entirely subjective, defined as you suggested by the individual, and always both different from the biblical one and, therefore, impossible and failing.
Recently, my 1-year-old nephew had his first vomiting sickness. It also happened to be on Easter with a bunch of family gathered. As his parents rushed him to the hospital, the rest of us gathered to pray. To a person, they all prayed for his safety and recovery. In my head, I prayed that if it is not His will for him to survive, that everyone involved would still praise Him. It worries me when people only pray for positive things without accounting for the negative (I'm specifically avoiding "good" and "bad" here). How will they react when it comes out negative? I know how I've reacted in the past, and regret my lack of faith at the time. I wish I could be like Paul, able to see God's goodness in everything at all times (at least on paper he does). I hope that that wariness in me will help me in the future to still praise God when the negative happens.
Reminding yourself of the truth of God's goodness at all times helps you to develop "muscle memory," so to speak, so that your default response is RIGHT even when your head or heart isn't quite in it.
Given a recent string of difficult things in my life, I still would say that God is good. Would that be harder to say had He not kept my youngest from successfully committing suicide? Probably, but that doesn’t mean that God isn’t good. Would it be harder to say God is good if the church that just fired my wife wasn’t imploding? Probably, but that’s not the measure of God’s goodness.
God’s goodness is the reality no matter what my circumstances are.
I've been dealing with the question of what constitutes a "good" God. Seems some choose to dictate. I choose to trust that He knows what He's doing. As Ralph Richardson said in portraying God in "Time Bandits", "I am the Supreme Being. I'm not totally dim." (Best line in the movie)
Though he slay me...
Good Job, Danny.
Marshal, I cannot fathom the sheer arrogance that says, "I'll be sure to let God know what is and is not good and I'm sure He'll get in line."
Craig, to me it is those who actually face those things and say, "God is good all the time" who are the most remarkable and appreciated.
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