Whose “good” is “good”?

 I was in my soul care study this morning with two very intelligent, spiritual ladies discussing the goodness of God.  This quickly became a sticky conversation as our hearts knew the answer to be “yes”, but out experiences in the world left us hardened and skeptical.

We quickly discovered that we had been asking the wrong question.  God is good.  Period.  But what does “good” mean?  Whose definition of “good” are we referring to? If God is good, there can only be ONE definition of good.  So we look to the Bible and find examples of God acting on the behalf of man.

The very first example that should come to mind is the death of Christ on the cross.  Was there anything “good” from man’s point of view about this?  Absolutely not!  But did you notice a little phrase I put in a few sentences ago?  “From man’s point of view”  I am beginning to discover that the key to this conundrum comes from the point of view from which you observe it.

Man sees the immediate, what is right in front of him. Using this frame of reference, much that God does seems capricious and mean-spirited.  Illness, war, brutality.  God doesn’t CAUSE these things, but he doesn’t stop them either.  There is a little verse, Romans 8:28 which knocks this thinking on its head: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.   There’s that “good” word again, talking about all things – cancer, death, mental illness.

So how can this work? I have a mental illness and frankly, I don’t see any “good” in it.  The answer comes in how God views time and eternity.  He’s got the whole story in front of him.  The chess board is under his command.  Our illness, that horrible war, the crucifixion of his Son, can and will be manipulated for “good”.  God wins. End of story!