Good or good? Painful Lessons in Good

I thought I knew all about God.

Then God in His mercy took me on an adventure with Himself! He took me to Indonesia and showed me just how much I still had to learn.

It was late in 2006. Our oldest daughter, our first baby was getting married in the coming summer. We needed an impossible $10,000 to fly our family home for her wedding. Days and weeks passed as we prayed and I cried many tears waiting on the Lord’s answer. God was very quiet. We were going to miss the wedding.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

I felt a bit frantic. Good? How could it be considered “good” for us to miss our oldest daughters wedding??? I was wrestling. Obviously God’s definition of “good” and mine were two different things. Ha! Go figure.

In retrospect, I can almost see God’s grin as I began a study of the book of Genesis. In chapter one God looks at His beautiful creation and calls it “good”. Even the creative process showed God’s care for His creation. In the application part of my Bible study this question was posed: “In what way are you questioning the goodness of God in your life?”

Ouch! It felt like God Himself was asking me.

The Bible study defined “good” for me in this way: When God calls something “good”, it is “good” because it reflects His character. As an artist I love how God’s creation reflects His character.

The good that God is working out in my life is God bringing about a reflection of His character in me. God is good. He is. He doesn’t need me to say that He is good. He just is. But when I confess from my heart that I know that it’s true, it brings Him glory.

After months and months of wrestling with God’s vocabulary, I was finally at peace. It was time to submit to God’s greater purposes and trust that if He chose for me to miss my daughter’s wedding, then it was for my good and I was in His good hands.

Painful learning adventure #1: God is deeply, perfectly good. I can trust Him completely knowing that even when I don’t understand, HE WILL accomplish His purposes in my life and use them to make me more like Him.

Special note: It was only days after I came to terms with God’s definition of good that we got word that He had provided through our home church for our tickets to fly home for the wedding. He is faithful. Always.