God’s Goodness to Me

We are great at declaring God’s goodness when He does something for us, when He shows up in the way we had prayed for and hoped—when He provides, when He heals. I heard a story of a man who was reading his Bible on a train when it crashed and killed many. He told a reporter, “I don’t know why I didn’t die, why I’m still alive…God is so good.” While I do not disagree with his statement, or think we shouldn’t declare God’s goodness when He spares our lives, heals, and provides, I just couldn’t help but think of the questions that may appear on the hearts of all the families who did lose someone on that train, the families who know God and those who didn’t. Was God then not being good to them? To us?

I felt this question stirring in my heart as I listened to a story of a family whose son was all but declared dead. As they prayed over his lifeless body, he began to breath; his life had been restored. And they sat and spoke with deep power and conviction of God’s healing power and goodness. Part of me wished they would have added, “But He is our healer, He is powerful, and He is good regardless of whether He had given life to our son.” Observing their faith as they spoke, I’m confident they would have said that, though through tear-stained eyes if the outcome would’ve been different.

But these stories, and many others I’ve heard of over the months since my daughter Sophie’s death as we’ve wrestled with all the prayers we prayed in faith for her healing, have stirred in me a deeper passion for when and how we speak of God’s goodness. My heart has become more sensitive to when people declare God’s goodness and when they don’t. Are we doing the watching world a disservice, giving them an unintentional and brazenly inaccurate view of who our God is when we plaster all over social media, and in conversation, His goodness only when life has gone the way we had prayed?

Even if we believe He is good in the good and in the pain, do people see that? I don’t know about you, but the stories of faith I am drawn to are the ones in which a person declares her trust in God, her belief in His goodness, apart from her circumstances. Something about those stories are compelling and transformational. They remind me there is a bigger story being written by a God who is more worthy of my praise than I could even dream. And ultimately, that’s the God I’m drawn to know more of.

It reminds me of what a woman wrote to me as she read our story with Sophie: “Your God is astounding.” Can people see this truth in your life in the way you speak? Yes, His “astounding-ness” is seen in the outwardly miraculous, but it is also seen when His power shows up in the midst of heartache, and sorrow—when there is no explanation for your response to life’s trial. This causes others to ask, “Who is your God, that you can respond like this?”

Now, don’t for a second think that if God had healed Sophie I wouldn’t be declaring all over, “God is so good, He healed my daughter!” I would be. “We have this hope as an anchor for our soul” (Hebrews 6:19). Hope is our anchor when He heals and when He doesn’t. God who good when His miraculous power shows up in mighty ways on the mountaintop. God is good when His power shows up in the storm. God is good when His power is felt in the stillness when you simply know He is there in the midst of your pain.

Though we may say it in a whisper instead of a shout, and through tear-stained eyes instead of overflowing happiness, let us not stop declaring His goodness even when life looks anything but good.

I’m still looking for a job, and don’t know how I’m going to pay my next bill. Still, God is so good.
The cancer came back. Still, God is so good.
I buried my firstborn. God is so good.
I prayed He would physically heal my daughter; He did not. Still God is so good.

As I wrestle with God’s goodness, the thing God continues to take me back to is the cross. Jesus, God in the form of man, came down to this earth to pay the penalty for my sin—the penalty I could not pay—to give me the life I didn’t deserve. This is His love. This is His goodness to me.

His goodness.

The question of His goodness was settled on the cross. When I say, “God, where are You, and are You good?” What answer am I wanting that could be greater than, “I am here, I came down to you, I paid the price for the ultimate pain and devastation that sin left on your heart so that you could be free, have life, and experience the kind of healing and restoration that is more than just physical, a restoration of relationship with me, the King of Kings, and a redemption of all things broken.” It is enough. Or is it?

There is a song that is sung during the Passover meal, “Dayenu.” It means, “It would have been enough.” It is line upon line of the Jewish people declaring the things God has done for them followed by the line, “It would have been enough,” after each one of them—declaring, “God if You had just shown Your goodness in this one thing You had done, it would have been enough.” Instead they go on and on because God in His divine goodness and grace showed up over and over to them. Is it enough? God is the definition of good. Even if He never once did what we deemed good in our lives, it would not change His character, His goodness.

Paige Benton writes: “Can God be any less good to me on the average Tuesday morning than He was on that monumental Friday afternoon when He hung on a cross in my place? The answer is a resounding NO. God will not be less good to me tomorrow either, because God cannot be less good to me. His goodness is not the effect of his disposition but the essence of his person—not an attitude but an attribute.”

I was just reading in Exodus 19 when Moses says to God, “Please show me your glory,” and God responds by saying, “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, ‘The Lord.” “All my goodness”—all my abundance, splendor, and riches, all my reputation, and what did God do to show him this? He did not give Moses anything but Himself. He allowed Moses to see Him.

He still promises goodness to us—goodness in the sending of Himself  in the form of Jesus to pay for our sins, and goodness in countless other ways when He “shows up” in our lives. It is my prayer that every time I question His goodness, I would look to the cross and say, “It is enough,” and declare more boldly in whatever comes my way, “God is so good” —not ignoring my reality but recognizing the truth of who God is in my reality.

His goodness is not defined or even enhanced by my circumstances. He is simply good. I’m a mother without a child to hold because God is so good to me. Today, this is His goodness to me; though I don’t understand it and I don’t “feel” that it is good. My definition of goodness does not have the eternal wisdom of God attached to it. I do not know the ways He is working out all things in my life for good. I just know He is (Romans 8:28).

What if we showed the world that we believe His ultimate goodness is just so incredibly good that come joy or pain we will declare, “My God is so good.” That people would wonder, “Who is this God they serve? What goodness could He bring into their lives that their circumstances don’t change their declaration of His power, goodness, and grace?”

This side of heaven God didn’t heal my daughter, but God is so good.

Hi! I’m Lindsey. I live in Orlando, Florida with my stud of a husband Kevin. We have 3 incredible children, Sophie and Dasah who now live with Jesus and Jaden who came into our lives through adoption. We have a very energetic golden retriever and love living in the sunshine state. I get to spend my days loving on my son, investing my life in college students here through a non-profit organization we’re a part of and when I have time, writing on my blog about the hope that doesn’t disappoint!

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