Is God Really Good? Finding God’s Goodness in Hard Times

Have you ever heard someone say, “God is good,” and quietly wondered if that was actually true?

I have.

There have been times in my life when I heard those words and thought, I know what I'm supposed to say.

God is good. All the time.

Abundantly and overwhelmingly good.

But have you ever said it while questioning it at the same time?

If God is good, why does life feel so hard?

If God is good, why are we struggling?

If God is good, why did this happen?

If you've ever asked those questions, friend, you are not alone.

And I'm actually thankful that God allows us to have these conversations with Him.

Because questions often lead us to answers.

And sometimes those answers lead us to a deeper understanding of who God really is.

I realized I had been defining God's goodness all wrong.

My biggest problem was that I was defining a good God by the world's definition of good.

Good means things are going our way.

Good means comfortable.

Good means no struggle.

No hardship.

No disappointment.

No uncertainty.

Good means everything is going good.

But what happens when it isn't?

How can God still be good when life is hard?

How can God be good when there is so much bad?

Is God actually good all the time?

Yes.

He really is.

I just had to stop looking at God's goodness through the world's definition of it.

The world tells us that struggle is bad.

But the Bible tells us something different.

James 1:2–4 says:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

The Bible doesn't tell us that trials are good because they are pleasant.

It tells us that God can use them for our good.

The struggle can produce perseverance.

The perseverance can produce maturity.

And God can use something difficult to accomplish something beautiful.

What if “bad” isn't the end of the story?

The world would say cancer is a death sentence.

But I've watched cancer become the very thing that God used to redirect my husband back to Himself.

It became the thing that God used to heal him.

Was cancer good?

No.

But God was able to take something painful and use it for good.

And that's something I think we miss when we define God's goodness by our circumstances.

God is good in the things we overlook every day.

It is the goodness of God that we draw our very next breath.

It is His goodness that gives us another day to live, to hope, to change, to repent, to love, and to begin again.

“His mercies are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.”

Think about that for a minute.

New mercies. Every morning.

Doesn't that sound like a good God?

A God who allows us to start over again.

A God who forgives us when we stumble and fall.

A God who doesn't abandon us when we get it wrong.

A God we can reach 24 hours a day, seven days a week through prayer.

That access to Him came at an incredible cost.

We can approach God because His good and blameless Son willingly went to the cross for our sins.

Jesus didn't promise us a life without storms.

But He showed us what to do in the middle of them.

Remember Peter?

When Peter stepped out of the boat and began to sink, Jesus didn't stand on the shore and tell him to figure it out.

He reached for him.

And I think that's something I need to remember when life feels like it's falling apart.

God's goodness isn't proven by the absence of storms.

His goodness is revealed by the fact that He is with us in them.

Maybe good isn't about how life feels.

Maybe goodness isn't a circumstance.

We can choose to be good even when everything around us is falling apart.

We can choose kindness when we're hurting.

We can choose forgiveness when we've been wronged.

We can choose faith when we don't understand.

We can choose hope when the circumstances don't give us much reason to hope.

And why can we do that?

Because we have A good God.

So now, when I hear someone say, “God is good,” I don't question it.

Because I finally understand that God's goodness isn't dependent on whether my life is going the way I want it to.

God is good when the answer is yes.

God is good when the answer is no.

God is good when the road is easy.

God is good when the road is incredibly hard.

God is good when I understand.

And God is good when I don't.

Not because everything is good.

But because He is.