God is Good

 A popular religious platitude that I simply cannot stand is the one which is expressed with the words, "God is good, all the time."  Of course, He is.  He is good.  And, He is good all the time.  Perhaps, what sits in my craw is the way it is used.  It is most often used when something good happens such as someone getting well who has been sick, or someone walking away from an automobile accident which should have killed them, or someone getting an answer to prayer just in the nick of time.  Such things and others like them are most likely candidates for "God is good, all the time."    

By the time everyone gets through responding in kind, it sounds like a heavenly chorus out there singing about the goodness of God.  But, what about those moments when healing does not come, a accident victim dies, or God seems to be silent in the face of unrelenting persistent prayer.  In those moments no one is out there crying out loudly,  "God is good, all the time."   Does not the platitude say "all the time" which surely must include these moments when God does not seem to be watching, or listening, or responding in the way we want Him to respond?  

The hard truth is that God is good.  He is good even when the results we want are not really seen by us as being good.  He is good even if no one dares to say it in the face of a loss, or unanswered prayer.  We want to make good relevant, but God's goodness is not relevant, it is absolute.  It is as absolute on Sunday as it is on Friday and it is as absolute in the days when the sun is shining as it is when the sun is hidden by dark stormy clouds.  Maybe my problem is not with the fact that God is good, but the way that goodness is often held forth as something which is conditional.  It is not.  God is good.  God's goodness never changes.  His nature speaks of goodness.  He can be nothing other than good.