One Unshakable Core Belief

Something needs to be solid in your life if you are going to grow spiritually. It’s the belief that God is good.

Maybe you said it at dinnertime in a childhood version of grace. The notion comes up in songs at church. We find it in Scripture. But people sorely question it when bad things happen. Still, every person has to resolve whether or not they will agree with this one core belief…

G   o   d        i   s        g   o  o   d.

Many reject this belief wholesale. Their hearts cry, “Evidence! Look at the suffering in the world and what God has allowed! How can there even be a God, much less a good God?”

Author Brent Curtis wrote about God as the playwright in Job’s story, and how similarly, “the story we find ourselves living in often seems to use up characters like trailer courts in tornado season.” He goes on to say, “I am filled with not a little outrage as well as an anxiety that wants to ask for a much smaller part of the play than Job had, or possibly even a role in a more off-Broadway production that I could help direct. You know, something like God Helps Brent Pursue Money, Wealth, and Fame While Living a Quiet Life.

“There is something frightening about being in a play in which the director may allow the plot to descend on my character…causing deep emotional or even physical harm.”[i]

Is God good? 

Countless individuals keep this mystery as a perpetual, unanswerable question. It’s on the back burner, simmering with torment. For believers, it undermines their faith with an increasing undertow of skepticism.

Yet amazingly, some people of faith wholeheartedly embrace the truth that God is good.

You might be tempted to think these folks live cushy lives, attend prosperous churches, have never fought in a war, and have compliant children. But more often than not, they have endured unspeakable suffering and injustices. Corrie Ten Boom, Amy Carmichael, Watchman Nee, Joan of Arc, Harriett Tubman, Dietrich Bonheoffer come to mind—and maybe even that kind old lady down the street with M.S. who bakes cookies.

Horatio Spafford wrote the famous hymn “It Is Well With My Soul,” after horrific tragedies in his life. First, his 2-year-old son died. Secondly, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 ruined him financially.

And then the unthinkable happened when his four daughters perished in a transatlantic crossing. Only his wife survived. “As Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write (the words of the hymn) as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.”[ii]

A little known verse of the song says this…

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

The Spaffords had three more children, but lost another son to scarlet fever. At this point, I can imagine myself in the pit of despair if it were me.

But not these people of faith.

After that, the Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony doing “philanthropic work among the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing motives—thereby gaining the trust of the local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. During and immediately after World War I, the American Colony played a critical role in supporting these communities through the great suffering and deprivations by running soup kitchens, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable ventures.”[iii]

For people like the Spaffords, the cornerstone of faith was and is the unshakable belief that God is good. “God, I will trust in your goodness no matter what it looks like here on earth.”

What do those people know that we don’t? One idea is that their experiences with God are more powerful than their questions.

Pastor Bill Johnson said, “Your faith will only explore the nature of God to the degree that you see Him as good. You may have a thousand questions, but allow your encounters with God to have more weight than your questions.”[iv]

If you can’t believe God is good, you can’t trust Him. And, you can’t get close to someone you don’t trust. That’s the Catch 22. We have to start from a position of faith in His goodness.

Think of it like this. If life is like traveling the sea by sailboat, we are vulnerable to the waves and tidal movements if we don’t put up the sails. We may paddle hard to get to the other shore, but hoisting the sails to catch the wind’s power makes all the difference. When you believe God is good, it’s like raising your sails. You are finally in a posture to taste and see that the Lord is good.

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This post is the first in a series of three on the goodness of God. Come back in two weeks for Part 2.

[i]The Sacred Romance, by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, pg. 54.

[ii]Read the rest of the story here.

[iii]Ibid.

[iv]“God is Good,” e-course by Bill Johnson, Bethel Church, Redding CA. http://ecourses.bethel.tv/course/god-is-good/