I will whole heartedly admit that God is holy, all powerful, and loving; when it comes to God's goodness though I am slower to respond with assent. I want to pose a few questions that I hope will help us to understand God's nature more fully. Why does the church assert God's goodness? What Biblical texts lead the church to this conclusion? If you agree that God is good what does this mean for you? How would you define God's goodness?
I hope that by the end of these few weeks I will be able to wholeheartedly say that God is good but I just can't say it right now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
29 comments:
Great topic, Tuna! I'm looking forward to this conversation.
My initial thoughts: tradition leads me to say God is good.
My experience points to occasions when God seems good but also to times when God doesn't seem to care. It's easy for me to praise God for his goodness when things are going well and to curse him for his cruelty when things are going poorly. Right now in my life, God seems good. I recognize this point of view as being very fickle and selfish.
In scripture God's goodness does not always seem present. Here are some examples that bug me: God's covenant promise of land to Abraham was only fulfilled in his lifetime after Abraham was swindled into paying too much for his wife's grave. The plagues of Egypt (affecting the entire popular) because of Pharaoh's God-hardened heart seems less than good. Having Hosea marry an unfaithful wife as a "sermon illustration" seems less than good.
Matthew 6:25-35 (often noted as the "do not worry" passage) just doesn't seem to play out in real life.
Although I can praise God for his goodness right now, I can't do that all the time. I want to, but I can't. I know all the pat answers that talk about God's big and sovereign picture being worth more than our meager lives or that God's holiness demands things of us in support of his kingdom that are hard for us to take or that life would be good if it weren't for sin or that we are blessed far more than we know. But there are times when it would be nice for things to go well for believers -- sort of a taste of heaven on earth. After all, we're only here for 70 or 80 years (or in Tuna's case, 100 years)... throw us a bone, God!
As I mentioned, things are going good now so I'm able to praise God for his goodness. I know that there a couple people on this blog for whom struggles abound right now and I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this.
Thanks again, Tuna, for your topic.
Aren't our worship songs good enough for you Tuna?
"God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good"
"... God is so good, He's so good to me!"
And my personal favourite: "You do all things well, just look at our lives!"
My short answer is that God is good but we don't know good when we see it. My longer answer is that God is good but there is a sort of good, better, best thing going on and Best is probably something that we only see from the long range view of hindsight. And best might include some real crap. Even lifelong crap for some people.
Which I believe gets to the heart of the question, and this is the level on which I am hearing Tuna address:
Even if God is good, what can you actually depend on in terms of what kind of goodness you should expect to experience? God in his goodness may hand me a life of suffering and martyrdom. He could be good, but that person won't see much of it in this lifetime. So how do they understand and experience God's goodness? Will they? Can they expect to?
I must declare that I stronly believe God (and life even) to be good, even though I am deeply depressed and disappointed with life as we know it quite often (and this from someone living in the affluent West even). I do not believe this to be a self-contradicting position and will try to defend it with as many Chesterton quotes as possible.
Great topic. Once again Tuna comes out with some real honest questions. Happy Birthday Tuna. May this be the year that something good happens to you!
Good thoughts, Fear: It's funny you mentioned those songs, I had just clicked here to list some lyrics as well (probably something by the Gaithers).
From Fear's thoughts, which (as always) are profound, it seems to me like there's perhaps two definitions of God's goodness going on here:
1. The goodness of God as something positive happening in your life -- whether you know it or not -- that will become apparent in eternity. The "long view" as indicated by Fear.
2. The sweetness of God that we sing about in church: a saccharine view of God that upon accepting him we'll experience sublime blissfulness until his return. I think our church tradition, including many songs (particularly Gaither songs!) point to this view. For example, "Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before..."
The sugary-sweetness of God makes me gag... at the same time, it would be nice if things were sometimes better on earth. I think of Job who seemed to become a pawn in a game between God and Satan: a hapless victim who (rightly) recognized God's goodness but not his sweetness.
I struggle with the idea of whether or not we should expect good things to happen in our life. Part of me says yes and part of me says no. I sometimes think "yes" because we're meant to enjoy God and worship him on earth and he put us here with the ability to smile and laugh and have a good time. The eden experience was exactly that and although we lost it, a part of it still exists for us and we look forward to it again. But I sometimes think "no" because evidence points to many people whose lives are crap and then they die.
For me, this is the most frustrating part. I don't think that God should "pay us" with earthly blessings because we become his children but it does seem, at times, that existence here is pointless in light of eternity: As I mentioned before, we're on earth for 70 or 80 years and for a lot of people the whole time can be really difficult. So why do some people exist in hardship for soooo long while others live lives of relative ease?
These are just some raw, initial thoughts to the topic.
I too would always have said that God is good. I believe it now too. My reasons for that overlap with some of our other discussions and other beliefs of mine that lead me to not blame God explicitly for the bad in this world. I think that because God is love and he is holy that he is incapable of sin and unholy actions. This would be a description of a good being wouldn't it?
Of course can God be implicitly responsible for bad in this world? That I don't know. If he's all knowing (something many of you on here believe) then he had to have known what was going to come of this earth when he made it so is he then responsible on some level for the bad? If so then can you call him good?
It's pretty tough to argue with Scripture like Psalm 116:5 - How kind the Lord is! How good he is!So merciful, this God of ours!
I need to understand more what Tuna means by the word good here? It seems to me from your brief description that you're questioning God's fairness not his goodness. I think a case can certainly be made that God's actions have not always been fair. Trembling's plaque example is a good one, I also think of all the first born males who died for Jesus to live, as well as Moses.
Tanti you are right, my understanding of goodness is tied to fairness. Clearly all of humanity is fallen and does not deserve any good. The problem isn't with understanding why bad things happen but why do good things happen? God seems to bestow favour on whoever he pleases. This favour isn't about how good someone is, if they are talented, or if they pray more. God smiles upon those he chooses to. This does not seem to be the attributes of a good God.
(It is funny that a bunch of middle class North Americans are complaining about God's goodness but I just want to know what kind of God I serve.)
Fairness? Is that what we're talking about?
I thought we were talking about whether we can expect God to give (or want to give) us things that we would call "good" as opposed to "bad". Is he good, as in, does he give good gifts, and is this something we can count on?
In that vein I was struck with something I read in Jeremiah yesterday. You've probably heard it before. It is probably written on many a book cover and proof-texted all over the place these days:
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'" (Jer 29:11)
Great life verse right? But can we take it that way?
Since I have to read the whole book of Jeremiah for a class, I was amazed at the context of the verse. God told Jeremiah to write a letter to the exiles in Babylon. They had just been told by a false prophet (Hananiah, ch 28) that they'd return home in 2 years. Jeremiah said that would be great, but its not true. He prophesied Hananiah would die and he did. Then God gave him this letter to write.
And in the verse preceding the one I quoted he says: "This is what the Lord says: 'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.'"
So this is not a good news verse, at least not in the way I suspect we take it, as a promise for a good life, a purpose-driven life. This is the announcement of seventy years of exile.
Of course, there is a wonderful promise there, and the verses go on to say that if the exiles seek God He will be found by them. He will be with them. And certainly he has good plans for them.
But is it a promise of a "good" life? I think not? So where do we get off applying it that way?
Even Shadrach and co., who were among the recipients of this letter, when faced with the fiery furnace, were NOT SURE if they'd survive the ordeal or not. Certainly they did, but they weren't sure they would. But they stuck with God.
How were they applying Jeremiah 29:11 you think? Promise of a good life? Martyrdom qualifies as "plans to prosper and not to harm"? I think not. I think there is an already/not yet to all this, even in the Old Testament, and it is only accentuated in the New, when, if anything, we are told that the plan is for us to carry a cross this side of heaven.
So I believe God is good. I even think he wants good things for me, and I will certainly go on to defend that position this month. But can I expect "good things" to happen for me in this life? Perhaps, but I better be prepared to wait 70 years sometimes. First and foremost we seek God. Everything else is garbage. Even things we'd call good, if they eclipse God, are not good for us. So if he gives us something that will eclipse him, is that a good thing? Shouldn't he get us ready to handle that good thing in perspective first, and then give it to us? Wouldn't that make him a "Gooder" God?
Sorry for the rant. I had to get that in in case we are shifting gears to God's fairness now. Thanks to my bro-in-law for the good talk yesterday about Jeremiah, it really helped me understand the verse, I think.
Good and fair are connected. If you were to lavish love on one child and neglect the other you would not be a fair or good parent. For me goodness isn't about equal treatment but about a logical way of dealing with people. The Bible says, that God loved Jacob and hated Esau. There is no reason given for this. King Saul gets rejected by God for offering a sacrifice when he was suppose to wait for Samuel to do it, while David goes on to commit adultery and murder; and then tries to cover his tracks. At the end David is called a friend of God while Saul is forgotten. I'm sure there is a reason for why God acts the way he does but to my earthly perspective these examples serve to take away from understanding God as being good.
The Bathsheeba example is a good one Tuna. One of my top 5 most confusing Bible verses is when David confesses to God that he sinned against him alone. And God doesn't correct him. Really? What about the sin of having Bathsheeba's husband killed? What about the sin against Bathsheeba and her marriage?
Anyway, I can see how good and fair are intertwined, I guess I was trying to make the point that God can be good while not all that happens on this earth is good or fair. I agree that the bigger problem is why good is handed out to only some. I can act like an open theist and say the bad is not God's fault cause he chooses to just let the earth spin but even that side of me still believes God does intervene occasionally and do good for some. Why them and not others?
In the end I trust that God knew more about people's hearts and motivations than the stories can express and I trust that He is good. It doesn't explain everything and it doesn't give the world a feeling of fairness to me but I don't recall God ever promising me the world would be fair. He did say he was good though.
We've got a real challenge here about how we define goodness. I suppose that on one hand God's holiness and the believer's hope of eternally worshipping God are both evidence of God's goodness. So is Christ's redeeming work on the cross. Admittedly, none of these are "fair". Tuna, I think you and I define God's goodness pretty closely in terms of wondering why God doesn't do more seemingly positive things on earth.
For me it compounds the problem when you compare Old and New Testament ideas of righteousness. Not always, but frequently, OT righteousness was rewarded with immediate blessing. OT unrighteousness was punished with immediate difficulty. In a sense, the NT seems to twist this: believers are promised hardship and persecution and are commanded to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth.
For me, that makes it challenging to look for relevant examples of God's goodness... the OT doesn't seem to give us a clear example because it puts forward the notion that the righteous will have blessings dumped on them.
I've never felt that God is fair... and I'm fine with that: mostly because grace is not fair but I fall on the side of receiving it. (Whew!). But there are plenty of times that I wonder if God is good... but I want to believe that he is good. Perhaps the bigger issue (for me, and maybe for Tuna) is that know God is good... we just want God to seem more consistent than he is.
I'm not sure I'd put such a stark division between the OT and NT ways of "fairness" or "justice". Certainly the welfare of Israel and Judah are tied to their relationship with God but they never really achieve all that much peace and security except for a few golden ages. But even those are born through turmoil and even within them there is longing for more (i.e. Ecclesiastes). This is not to mention that some of the most holy OT people never saw the promised health and wealth in their lifetime, or if they did it was right near the end.
Furthermore, in the NT you still have this sense that "the Father will give good gifts to those who ask him" (Lk 11:9-13).
But in both Testaments you have this sense of God taking care of his own in the already but that even then there is a whole lot of not yet.
It is Malachi, who speaks to God's people after their return from exile and their successful rebuilding, who records God's Word:
"You have said, 'It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed...the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.'"
But then God goes on to promise: "You will again see the distinction between the rigtheous and the wicked".
Have we seen it yet? Regardless, this was an OT issue as much as it is today.
But that is more about justice isn't it? I just don't think there was ever meant to be fairness. The Fall threw whatever fairness there may have been out the window. Any move of God to his creation is grace, and Romans 1 indicates that there is enough grace in the world for all to be held to account.
Besides that, I doubt Eden would have been "fair" anyway. Adam and Eve were different from each other and would have had different relationships with GOd. Both would have been untainted and good, but "fair"? I don't know. Adam was made first and got to name the animals. Already it isn't fair.
I rarely find it helpful to compare myself to others. Especially because when I do I feel awfully guilty because in global terms (and even local ones) I have had a lot of unfair advantages in life.
Then again, maybe I'll be judged more harshly for what I did with it. After all, I believe God is just.
Thank God Almighty He is also Good.
I agree with what you are saying Fear but it leaves me feeling kind of squemish. (though that could have been the raw meat) What leaves me troubled is the idea that God is as fickle as the rest of humanity. Treating some people like good friends just because he likes how they dress or that they have a cool name. I know this view is wrong but I want to serve a God who relates to his creation in a way that is different from other human relations. We all encounter employers who hire based on connections rather then abilites, we all have had friends and enemies that were so for very fickle reasons. God should not operate like this but in the Bible he seems to come accross this way and through human history we find more examples.
I have been reading through the prophets, and have been thinking about the book of Job in relation to this disscussion. Serval times in these books God answers the questions of his people by asking them if they were around when the world was formed? Or if they were there from the beginning of time? Clearly the answer is no and the point is that God is above our questioning. I will admit that my accusations of God are faulty but my desire is to know the real God not just the Sunday School God, or the western idea of God. God is still God even if he isn't good but I just want answers to how God relates to his creation.
"God is still God even if he isn't good." I'm really struggling with this topic and that comment. I don't understand how we can question God's goodness. We don't know that God is good because we see or experience good things. We know God is good because he has revealed himself to us that way in Scripture. Many times.
2 Chronicles 7:3 "...and they worshipped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, 'He is good; his love endures forever.'"
Psalm 34:8 "Taste and see that the Lord is good"
Psalm 86:5 "You are forgiving and good, O Lord"
Psalm 100:5 "For the Lord is good and his love endures forever."
Mark 10:18 "'Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. 'No one is good- except God alone.'"
1 Peter 2:2-3 "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
Just a few of many verses in Scripture declaring God's goodness. How can we question that as a basic attribute of God any more than we can question whether God is holy, just, or loving?
It does seem to me like your questions relate more to God's fairness as opposed to goodness. Why does he seem to bestow favor to some and not others? Goodness and fairness are similar, but not the same. Forgive me if I'm diving too much into language issues, but here's some definitions from Webster.
Good: There are exactly 50 definitions in my dictionary, but the first says, "morally excellent, virtuous, righteous."
Fair: 25 definitions, and the first says, "Free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice."
Are we discussing whether God is morally excellent, virtuous, or righteous? Are we discussing whether he is biased, dishonest, or unjust? I struggle with most of those as accusations against God. It makes me sqeamish- but we did have steak for supper.
I don't think we're talking about whether God is good, we're talking about what we get to see of that goodness. Sure the Bible affirms his goodness, but a lot of Psalms question it, and then proclaim more like a personal reminder than as a personal experience at the time.
I don't see God as fickle like humans are. Wild maybe, but I just think His reasons are beyond our knowing, but hindsight shows me often enough that what I thought was capricious was all for good reason. If anything the times I question God's goodness to me are when he is preciselly not being fickle, and won't go along with my latest fancy. He rarely gives me anything without making me really appreciate it first.
I may not always be happy with what God gives me, especially when I compare myself to others (especially at my lows compared to their highs), but I am convinced that God has given me a better life than I would have chosen for myself if I'd been able to have everything I wanted when I wanted it. I can't speak for everyone in the world, but that's my experience in hindsight.
So I am personally convinced in God's goodness. That's not to say I don't question it again in the dark and crappy times, but He can handle that, and it is crazy how often he proves himself good to those who seek Him, even while still leaving that longing for so much more than what we see through the glass darkly.
I'm also convinced that if I seek my own happiness but don't want to take it on God's terms I may get some "good" stuff in this life but in the long run I'll have neither happiness nor God.
I would be somewhat uncomfortable with Tuna's comment about God still being God even if he is not good if I didn't know Tuna. I suspect it is more like a declaration of faith, even while it paradoxically contains a lot of doubt. First thing I though of when I read it was Job's: "Though you slay me I will trust you Lord".
How does Mr. Jabez handle that verse? And how many rich white western Christians have a faith that would say that? My guess is something like 144,000.
I hear what everyone is saying here and I want to play devil's advocate (in purely metaphorical terms).
I agree that the Bible tells us God is good and I take that to mean that he defines good, everything does must then be good. He can't be capable of bad. Good is not something we define and then ask ourselves whether God fits it, it's the other way around. If you think something is good you compare it to God to know for sure.
Here's where that gets sticky, was it good to kill whole nations in the OT whose governments opposed the Israelites? Women, children and animals included? Was not one of them innocent? Can it be good to kill innocent people? Can it be justified that so many first born males died so Jesus could live? Maybe these things are ok but then we are saying that colateral damage is ok and that the ends justify the means.
I know I don't believe that in this world today, I'm against the Iraq war, I believe the A-bombs in WW2 were reprehensible etc... but don't those examples line up with the God of the OT who allowed his people to kill whole nations to punish the guilty among them?
Is that good?
I think that our persepective is extremely limited in our current state as humans; making our views of goodness and fairness little more than products of whether what we think should have happend or not was what actually happened. Sometimes our desires and convictions might be quite honourable and noble but we are basically just looking at shadows on the back of a cave wall in this lifetime. But in a matter of 70 odd years or so we will be able to actually turn around and see what was really casting those shadows and I think our perspective on this issue will be blown out of the water as a result.
That being said, I know I don't have access to God's "big picture" plan by I do actively struggle with his concept of fairness, or at least my concept of fairness that I feebly impose upon him. It kind of reminds me of that parable about the landowner and the workers, where the workers are paid the same ammount at the end of the day, both the one that worked the full day and the ones that worked only an hour.
I suspect this topic is even more of a stumbling block for thinking unbelievers that are exploring Christianity.
What is good? Romans 1 says that God's wrath is most explicitly seen in God "giving people over" to their own lusts and desires.
Then elsewhere in the NT we are told to "take joy in trials and tribulations" of many kinds; we're told that we are disciplined for our own good; and when Jesus speaks most clearly to his disciples about the time that is to come he says "you will have trouble".
Isn't it a good sign if we have rough go of it and a bad sign if we are having a "good" time?
We live in the most affluent part of the world in arguably the most affluent (or at least comfortable) time in history and we're concerned with God being good to us? If anything we should be dang concerned about how dang comfortable we actually are.
This disscussion of goodness has gone all over the map and for the most part I think that is good thing. Fear I appreciate what you are saying and I think it moves us closer to something I want to know. What do you mean by goodness? In my previous post it has been made clear that for me goodness and fairness are connected concepts. I will admit that God does good things and is a good God but what implications does this have for his human creation? Goodness is clearly not about getting what we want, when we want it but it does need to lead to a better life.
It has probably not come out in my previous blogs that I do consider myself blessed by God. I am a lucky person to be called a child of God. There is no way I derserve what I have recieved and in no way have I earned this status. Yes I do get upset that God doesn't give me what I want but I have no reason to complain.
I do wonder though about how God's goodness is displayed to those who are not his children? Yes, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God but it seems some people have God smiling down on them while others only see the back of his hand. It seems that unchageable God can be closed off on a Tuesday and open and willing to bless on a Wednesday. Again this a cry for a logical understaning of why God acts and why he doesn't? Goodness seems to be an elusive concept.
Though by saying this i am forced to reconsider my own understanding of goodness. If a non christian wins the lottery is that God's goodness? Having all that money could quite possibly lead them away from a relationship with him. While allowing someon's drug addiction to spin out of control might end up being an act of loving kindness. This post seems like a lot of crazy ramblings but I am just searching for wisdom on understanding how I should view God as being good.
"The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man." --GK CHESTERTON
Fear, you should get the GK Memorial for that last post. Also I understand what you're saying in your post previous but I think you're addressing questions nobody's asking.
For me this discussion hasn't been about how God could be good to me more. This discussion has been about the goodness of God. I argue that because I believe scripture to be true, and because scripture tells me God is good, then God is good. However, this makes me question what it means to be good for I would certainly not call a person good who allowed innocent people to die for the transgressions of a few and I see God doing this in the OT. That makes me struggle with what it means to be good in an overall sense and yet sometimes maybe the best option isn't available but the otpion that's taken is still "good".
Correct me if I'm wrong here, maybe some of you who are more studied in the OT can tell me about the instances of nations being killed by God and what the context was. For now I see it as the best example I can think of for this question of God's goodness.
This question is very different for me in the post-Jesus world. And with my belief that God chooses not to know everything it makes it easier for me to see him as good and see the bad of this world relating to sin and the fall and our free will etc... and that the bad doesn't happen exclusively to the good people or vice versa. It's a random world that God sometimes interjects in and often doesn't.
So for me he still comes out good, but that OT question is a much tougher one.
i do realize i've been talking about a different issue than some of you. i think with the fairness issue we are now onto theodicy, or the problem of good and evil. that's fine.
i'm with you tanti in the belief that God has given free will enough free reign that the bad in teh world is a result of the fall (even if each bad thing is not directly correlated with a sin). i also find the OT troubling. God SEEMS capricious in his vendettas against nations.
but to me it all comes down to the doctrine of the fall. if things are really really bad and each person is guilty, even in contexts where entire nations seem to be punished for the sin of their king, if each person has missed the redemption offered them, and has chosen self over creator ... if all have sinned and God's wrath burns, then these things take on a new light.
The thing about the doctrine of fallenness is that we don't need a Bible to know it. I think it was GKC who said that the doctrine of fallenness is at once the most denied and the most emperically undeniable of all the doctrines. everyone knows something is wrong and that we are wrong too. we see incredible deniable of this in our culture today but this is a clear case of putting the blinders on and it feels like ROmans 1 to the extreme.
I will say this about the OT. When I haven't read the prophets for awhile I tend to think of it as this place of God's wrath and as a place where God is not loving. But then I read them again (as I had to for class this week) and I am constantly surprised at GOd's grace and the hope he just continues to hold out even in punishment.
The Bible suggests to me that everyone gets a chance. And those who show hints of faith are given even more opportunity to be redeemed. Those who reject what is given them, for them God seems to be patient, but at some point they are given over to their choice of self-reliance. ANd in the kingdoms of the OT who are punished I guess I just trust that God would honour whatever faith was there.
I could expand that answer but I've said enough and class is going again ...
sorry that was all very convoluted.
fear, that wasn't as convoluted as it likely felt to you.
I appreciate the perspective and you've challenged me to go back and read the prophets.
A lot of silence on here. Would like to hear: Do you expect good things to happen in your life? Is this on the basis of God's goodness or is it on the basis of fluke or ambition?
Can you always expect good things to happen to you? And if they don't, even over long periods of time, is that telling you anything? Is it indicative of your place with God?
I believe I can count on God to be good to me, but dark and bad times can be good for me and can be a way that he brings me around to BE better, or can be a way that he prepares me to properly handle the good he does have to give me.
Sadly, I rarely remember this in the midst of those bad times, but in a sense that's good because my faith should not be in whether I'll get something good out of God, but should be in God as God.
Trembling and I have talked in recent months about dark, disoriented times in our life which seem good in hindsight because they prepared us to properly appreciate and handle good things to come. Not to downplay the difficulty of those hard times, but from God's perspective (much clearer than our hindsight) I wonder how good they looked and how much he longed to walk us through them.
Can I say that I should expect a good life because I am a believer? Truthfully I should probably expect a bit of the opposite, while also expecting God to want good things for me (not due to my merit but by his grace and character). However, there will always be a longing for the new creation, and for me to get it too good here would reduce than longing and potentially even spoil my willingness and effectiveness in sharing the Way to that new creation.
To be honest when times are good I go back and forth between feeling like I earned it and feeling unworthy of it. More often the latter. I struggle with the line between confidence and arrogance, one being necessary for life and the other being a vice.
As for bad times, I do likely blame God for them, maybe not blame but I get upset that he won't intervene when I ask in those times.
I think if people expect more of what we consider "good" things to happen to them in this life then living out the Christian ideal is prolly not the best idea. When I look at scripture and especially Paul's writing its full of warnings that if we follow Christ we will have trouble, we will be persecuted. But then I look at the OT and it seems to be telling a different story, almost health and wealth gospel at times. I.e. if you have faith and are obedient you will be blessed, a la Jabez.
Personally I expect good things to happen, but I also expect bad things to happen. I will try to take the time to appreciate the good and to learn through the bad.
I don't think that I'm quite as clearsighted as Tanti in that I often catch myself feeling kind of deserving of the good times when they come along rather than grateful for God's blessing.
Even long strings of what I would consider bad times in my life have not caused me to question God's goodness. It is more the larger issues issues of social justice and poverty in the developing world that makes me question it.
Fear good job focusing the discussion, i guess that is suppose to be my job but as you all know I am unreliable.
For a long time I did expect to get prefrential treatment from God because I was a follower. Over the last few years I am realizing how wrong I am on that notion. Being a Christian isn't like belonging to a club or having a memership card. It doesn't entitle you to better health, wealth, or success. In fact it may take away from these three examples.
I have been struggling over this goodnes issue, wanting to put God down, or make logical arguments on why God doesn't do the things I want. The fact is this issue isn't logical it is emotional. I get mad at God because my life isn't the way I want it to be. I get mad at God because he seems to withold happiness from me. I have been all over the map this month arguing different points to try and slander God and that is sinful. It is okay for me to question but it comes down to an issue of trust. Do you believe that God is the best person to lead your life? If you can't answer yes then I think you have to ask yourself what you are doing calling yourself a Christian. All of life is going to be a struggle to answer Yes to this question but that does have to be our, and mine, final position.
I get incredibly frustrated by the direction GOd seems to lead me and the things he seems to withold from me but at this point I have to say that I am going to trust God and trust in his goodness when it is evident and when it is not.
Okay, I'm going to let loose on my thoughts here. I believe God created everything and it was good, and then we royally screwed it up. Any example we see of goodness in this fallen world is evidence of God's unmerited favor. Any beauty, any blessing, any act of mercy, is, as far as I'm concerned, a sign that God is unbelievably good to us undeserving wretches.
I personally don't think we can expect good things to happen to us. We are reaping what we've sown as a human race. None of us deserves a single, darn-tootin' good thing. HOWEVER, based on God's track record in my life, I've come to see that he does give me good things, even though I don't deserve it, so in that respect, I do believe good things will happen. That probably sounds like a paradox: I don't expect good things to happen, but I believe they will.
All of us deserve God's wrath, and yet here we stand on this earth and what have we received from God? An invitation to redemption. A relationship. For many of us, health, freedom, abundant material possessions, community, family. Every one of those things is so far above and beyond what we deserve that I cannot see anything but an amazingly good God. Anytime we perceive he is withholding something from us or we expect him to intervene when he isn't, we should see that as a sign of our fallenness more than a sign of God's "non-goodness." (I should probably re-work that sentence so I don't have to use a word like "non-goodness" but I don't have time.) We don't deserve the things we ask of him, so how can we get upset when we don't get them? And yet, amazingly, he invites us to keep asking, and more amazingly, he often says yes.
I think we could probably agree that for most people in the world, "health, freedom, abundant material possessions, community, family" would be considered good things. But why do only some of us get them? Maybe this is more about fairness than I at first supposed.
What about those who don't have much experience of these good things? Can they "see anything but an amazingly good God."
Can they? Or do they have to take it on faith, while we do not? Why do some get more goodness than others? Why do some get more fallenness than others? Is it God's fault? Theirs? Ours perhaps?
If it is God giving you good things, then do you not have to also admit that it is God NOT giving those same good things to others?
Why do we in the West have so many good things? And what do people in the West (let alone the undeveloped world) have to do to get the good things everyone around them gets? People they grow up alongside and have a lot in common with. Two twins could concievably have the same life except one gets good while the other doesn't. Certainly God is good, but how should those twins interpret goodness in this life?
I am thankful for the good things I have, particularly family and health, and I don't think I should feel guilty for them, but at what point have I over-indulged? At what point am I overdosing on good at the expense of better? At the expense of spreading that good to others?
I wonder to what extent Western Christians have been "given over" to their lusts and to what extent we think we have it good but in the eternal perspective we have a life and faith that is deadened by our creature comforts. And in global perspective I wonder how much we are supposed to be sharing our goods and yet have not. I wonder if the unfairness in the world is our fault (systemically). I wonder at what point we do have to feel guilty for the goods we have, not because we have them but because we hog them. I wonder how much God has left fairness in our hands and we have dropped the ball. I wonder if in that sense our judgment is coming and in the end we might see that our goods were actually "bads" because the more we got the less we thought and so we spiralled further into our own self-focussed depravity at the expense of our own soul-health, not to mention the body-health of those around us?
Goodness comes from God. I'll affirm that and enjoy it. But if my enjoyment of it is selfish and hogging then how long do I have before I see "Mene Mene Tekl Parsen" written on my wall? Mercifully, we may never see that. On the other hand, perhaps it isn't mercy that keeps that from happening. Perhaps we experience God's wrath as he gives us over to our own desires and refuses to step in with wake up calls anymore.
I am the chief of sinners in this regard, but how can I point at God's goodness/fairness without recognizing that biblically it seems there should be three fingers pointing back at my own?
That was a lot of wondering that I'm not sure I know how to comment on, but I will say this: Yes, I surely admit that God has given me good things that he has not given to others. I cannot explain it, except to say that I know I will be held accountable for what I've done with it. It's not something I think about often, but I am aware that much has been given to me and much is/will be expected. It's sobering.
yeah i do a lot of wondering. here's what i think. i think GOd is good and wants to do good for everyone but that we don't always see eye to eye with him on what is good for us. i think he created us free and that that is a real freedom and as a result there is much inequity in the world. inequity which is a result of fallenness even though not always directly traceable to a particular sin.
i think the unfairness of life should madden us, and that we have been given responsibility in the fallen world to seek equity and strive to share the world's goodness. when we don't i think it bothers God and he does intercede miraculously in some ways and sometimes seems not to. this is baffling but it is still our fault.
i think that Western Christians with our wealth and comfort are in danger of having a worship that is detestable in GOd's sight, if it isn't already. we are free, we are blessed, and we do not share. and we grumble and complain. we are in big trouble if we don't shape up.
i don't really have a problem with the existence of bad in the world. i don't blame God for it because it is a by-product of our freedom, and I am thankful for freedom. Without freedom we could not have love, joy, or anything good that we experience. bad is the shadow of good and i understand that.
the one thing i have a problem is why even when we try to do good it seems we can't. we are so devestatingly fallen i find it quite frustrating. as my good friend trembling says often enough: even now Lord Jesus come. And as I am oft praying these days: Lord have mercy on us all.
I believe GOd is good. He has been very good to me, even in times where I thought he was being bad to me. I believe in this to my dying day (I hope). I believe GOd wants me to strive for good things. But we are in a battlezone too. WE are resident aliens. And my comfort might be the worst thing for me in that it could forfeit the something better that we are really to be living for and sharing. So good is good and God is good but God is first and good is second.
that's what i think.
Post a Comment