How Can We Know God is Good?

I have finally gotten to my friend Courtney Doctor’s devotional book, From Garden to Glory, for my morning time in the Word. Like my teen devotional it starts with Creation and The Garden because if we don’t get our story straight in the beginning we will misread and misapply Scripture. Too often we view our Bibles as more of an instruction manual than the one unfolding story of a conquering king who came to rescue and redeem his people.

So I’m in Genesis, chapter one.  Something I’ve read and heard since I was a small child, and written about myself. It can be tempting to skip over familiar passages like this, but I’m glad I didn’t. Once again God’s inexhaustible, living and active word struck me in a new way.

This time, the repetitive phrase, “Let there be…and there was” jumped out at me. You know, let there be day and night. Let there be heaven and earth. Let there be vegetation, the sun and the moon, creatures and mankind. And there was and It was good.

God spoke creation into being and declared everything good. So my big thought of the day: If this was true then, isn’t it still true now?

In Hebrews 13:8 we read, “Jesus (who is God) is the same yesterday, today and forever.”  And in Psalm 100:5, “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.” Therefore, according to God’s unchanging nature and the authority of his word, it has to be that still today what the Lord declares/decrees (Let there be) will come to pass (And there was) according to his perfect plan (It was good).

This can be tough to swallow. I’m wrestling with it even now as too much bad is happening all around me.  How can we make sense of sin, suffering and trials being ordained for our good?  The thing is we may never understand the whys. Even so, I can either reject the truth of God’s goodness and sovereign rule, and live completely hopeless, or I can ask him to help me trust him and live with the hope of his promises.

I chose the latter.

At the cross, Jesus declared victory over sin, death and the devil. That is why we call Good Friday “good” even though it was the day of Christ’s gruesome and undeserved death. At the cross, God’s word is made more real to us not by answering our whys, but giving us a Savior who entered in with us and for us. Jesus did everything necessary to satisfy God’s wrath and declare “It is finished” so we can know with certainity that our love has been secured.  Let there be…And there was…it was good.

If this is true, when I experience the pain and heartbreak of this world, by God’s grace I can my fix eyes on another world and remember this is not my home.  One day all things will be made right and his perfect peace will rule forever.  Let there be…And there was…it was good.

If this is true, when I struggle with my identity and worth, by God’s grace I can know my security in the One who declared me holy, perfect and righteous according to who Jesus is for me! By the power of his word may this mean more to me than what I see as true. Let there be…And there was…it was good.

His Word is his guaranteed goodness to all who believe. It doesn’t take away the trials or prevent suffering, but it promises that one day he will wipe away all of the tears.  And even if it is not until we stand with him in glory, a day is coming that we will taste and see that he is good.

The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8

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