Hope When It HurtsSample

"When God Doesn't Seem Good"

It was a vacation I desperately needed. I really, really needed to relax, unwind, and recover. 

We made it to our destination and I was so thankful that we had stayed healthy and arrived to enjoy our vacation. I thanked God for his goodness and took a deep sigh of relief! 

The next morning my daughter woke up extremely sick. Two days later, I came down with it as well. 

I felt angry and confused at why God would allow this. Didn’t he care?

We will all face these moments in our lives, when everything we can see tells us that God is not good to us. At those moments, whether we realize it or not, we ask ourselves this question: Do we believe God is good by what we see or do we believe God is good because of who he is? 

As I lay on the couch on vacation, feeling miserable while my family enjoyed the beach, I had two options. I could walk by sight and allow what I couldn’t understand to simmer into a rolling boil of anger toward the Lord, or I could choose to walk by faith by reminding myself that God’s ways are higher than my ways, and that he is trustworthy and good, even when I can’t make sense of my circumstances. 

Friend, this life is filled with circumstances that will leave us questioning or even denying God’s goodness if we live by what we see, rather than by faith in what God has promised. The choice we face is a daily one. We can choose to either trust what we see and define what’s good for us ourselves, and grow annoyed with God and doubt his goodness, or we can live by faith in a crucified Savior and let him define what’s good for us, even if it means exercising our faith muscles as we choose to trust him over what we can see and feel.    

So let’s come to Christ with our doubts and weaknesses and ask him to give us the faith to take our eyes away from what we can see in front of us and lift our eyes again to the cross—because that is where we will find assurance and confidence in the undeserving goodness and faithfulness of our heavenly Father. Is God good? Yes. He died for you.

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