God's Goodness through it All

Dear reader,

no, I will not start with another explanation about the delay to keep my blog updated - here's something perhaps worth reading...

'Life isn't awlays fair, but God is always good.' --Anonymous

His father recognised God's tremendous gifting in him; his brothers were jealous of him and sold him into slavery; he worked with dedication, faithfulness and loyalty; he was wrongly accused and thrown into prison. Who is the person who had to endure all that? JOSEPH, one of Jacob's sons, in fact, his second youngest and son of the woman Jacob truly loved.

Life can hit us hard at times, and it's not always great tragedy or sickness. No, encounters with hatred, betrayal, jealousy, or injustice can be as hard a situation to go through as any tragedy- that at least what I think, don't know about you!? Yet in all this, we can draw comfort and encouragment from the Bible(Romans 15:4), as certain figures have already been through what we might face - and God brought them through it all! Isn't it a deep human need to feel understood? To know someone somewhere has been through what you are going through and knows what you feel without having to explain a word? Feels good, right?

I don't know who said it (first...), but it's a great statment - and true as well: 'Life isn't always fair, but God is always good.' Most people can certainly agree to the first part of the statement - life isn't always fair. In fact, for some people life is hardly ever fair. Yet others encounter sporaid injustice in life. Last week a guy was found innocent of the murder he was jailed for - and spent 27 years of his life behind bars! Now that's 'Life isn't always fair'-stuff, right? I hope he'll recover! There are millions of innocent children who suffer the effects of human injustice every single day. Humans can be cruel, very cruel. It's amazing what people are capable of. Recently a new book as been published, exposing Nazi women for their cruelty... who would have thought that?

Yet, you say, these are extreme cases. Well, I agree, and I don't. I know good people who can suddenly become very mean - when you touch something they don't want you to touch. As a minister I have the responsibility to point out issues that need change - and the consequences of doing that can be tough, very tough, but worst of all, they can be unfair. You get blamed for doing things you didn't do; slander seeks to blaken your name; others seek to justify their own failure by telling people how bad you are - anyone familiar with that? As I say, these are not Nazis or Stalinists, no, these are normal people at work or elsewhere.

So what about the second part of the quote, then? 'God is always good.' Oh, sorry, forgot a word: 'but'! That's an important word. You find it in the Bible at crucial 'turning points': Paul, for example, points out that humans without God can be evil and wicked, 'but God' (Eph 2:4) loves humanity and wants to change what is wrong - if he is allowed... The 'but God' parts are encouraging, for He is able to change things, or at least give an alternative for individuals to choose. We don't have to keep doing what he hate about ourselves - God can change it, for good. Yes, I know He can - ask my family and friends!

While life might throw all kinds of bad stuff at us, we need to trust God's goodness to carry us through, and we need to trust His justice to eventually come through. Blessed are those who weap now, for they shall laugh, Jesus promised. Surly better than the other way around. You find many people in the Bible who had a difficult start, yet God started to turn things around for them and caused a good end which makes you forget the bad things of the past - God can do that. In fact, Paul claimed that God is able to work out all things - yes, all things - into something good (Romans 8:28). All things can work together for something good - only God can do that! So, while life isn't always fair, we can hold on to the hope that God is always good. Certainly Joseph could affirm that statement - perhaps he was, after all, the first person to say it, I don't know...

Trust God to get you through it all - He is ALWAYS good.


Shalom,
Gordon