What Is Good?
The word “good” can mean a lot of different things depending on who you ask. It could be in reference to a sports team’s record, a piece of music, artwork done by a child, a sermon, a tasty meal, a response to how we’re doing. Merriam-Webster lists a plethora of definitions, but the overall feeling of the word “good” is usually pleasant.
If I were to shell out words like “pain,” “suffering,” “discomfort,” “heartache,” “death,” “brokenness,” or “grief,” what synonyms come to mind? Most likely other negative descriptors. But if you were to ask God to give a synonym for these, he would have the ability to say “good”.
Why is this?
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55:8-9 ESV)
When you picture Jesus on the cross, what comes to mind? The scene, as I imagine it,is set on a dry and dusty hill with dark gray clouds covering the sky. The cross is rugged, unevenly cut, bloody, and edged with splinters. Jesus cannot hold his head up due to the pain in his back, his head, his hands, and his feet. Drops of blood cover his forehead and drip into his mouth and over his neck from the thorns firmly pressed into his skull. He is thirsty and weak. Each breath is laborious. There are flies landing on his sticky, stinking skin, and he cannot satisfy the urge to swat them away. He is naked and unable to cover himself. When the time comes, he cries out in pain as God turns his face away. He is beyond the darkest feeling and deepest shame you and I have ever experienced. The scene is hopeless and heavy.
And yet, it is good.
Another scene unfolds around me as I picture my girlfriend’s request for prayer after she describes her garage catching fire in the middle of the night. There’s another scene of despair as a girl much younger than I am tells me of her cancer diagnosis. I see homes abandoned in Ukraine as families run for their lives. I see lifeless bodies of friends who took their lives into their own hands. I’ve seen caskets for stillborn babies and heart desperate talk of formula shortages.
And yet, it is good.
Why is this?
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!” (Ps. 46:10 ESV)
When we are still before God, listening for his quiet voice while the world around us feels dark and heavy, we have the opportunity to trust him in the storm. We learn to shut out the negativity surrounding us and meditate on his faithfulness and ultimately his goodness. We are his clay. When our expectations and wills are abandoned to him, he gives us grace to see how “all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28).
God’s definition of good is different than our earthly one. It is hidden in the midst of trials. It cannot be found without the enlightening of the Holy Spirit. It must be searched for and clung to. It is never missing from any situation, and it may be that it comes only with time. To the women who have suffered abuse and the children who have been neglected, to the Christians murdered for their faith and the innocent lives taken in war, goodness is not found in the hearts of the abusers and neglecters and murderers but in the justice God will provide when the time is right. We can count on him to deliver it.
God will lock out all forms of hatred and pain and evil from his heavenly kingdom, and won’t that be good? If you have found the ability to see good in all things, then praise be to God, who has lavished his grace on your heart.
Sister, where has your walk taken you right now? Are you able to look back on the trials you have endured and find the good that God is working through them? Remember, the situation does not have to look good in our eyes but we have the opportunity to trust that God, in his time, will bring it forth on our behalf.
loves sunshine, quiet mornings, half-caf coffee, cute kitties, and anything crafty. She and her husband live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they are excited to be pursuing foster care with the hope of bringing love to kids in need.
Photograph © Valentin Müller, used with permission
