Is God Good?

As the year comes to close I can't help but think about the last year.  I feel like this year more than most was full of heartache.  Just to name a few I watched a friend lose her husband, another lost her son, friends with health issues, we have had two of our foster kids move for reasons where I think the system failed them, kids who were suppose to return home but parents made more mistakes, loss of friendship, a group of girls at church who last week asked "you aren't going to leave us are you, people keep quitting on us here and at home," and not to mention all the things at our home that broke and needed replaced.  With all of this and more I found myself last week wondering where is the good.  I never question God's power, his strength, or that he is has the ultimate say but I sure did question His goodness.  

Jesus teaches that we are to be the light to the world.  Wherever the darkness is we are suppose to bring hope, light and restoration.  It's hard not to get caught up in all the brokenness and injustices we see.  Yet if we just scream about the hurt we are missing half the story.  I had to relearn that God is good all the time.  I recently completed a study of Job with a group of ladies at church.  Reading this book I was reminded that our purpose is to glorify God.  And because of sin God cannot promise a life without heartache but what He can promise is that He will never leave you and that is good.  God is good because with you in the pain.   God is good because His eternal promise of heaven if we trust Him.  

We also know God is good because of Jesus. 

 Max Lucado said it best  "He[Jesus] pressed his fingers into the sore of the leper. He felt the tears of the sinful woman who wept. He inclined his ear to the cry of the hungry. He wept at the death of a friend. He stopped his work to tend to the needs of a grieving mother. He doesn’t recoil, run, or retreat at the sight of pain. Just the opposite. He didn’t walk the earth in an insulated bubble or preach from an isolated, germ free, pain-free island. He took his own medicine. He played by his own rules. Trivial irritations of family life? Jesus felt them. Cruel accusations of jealous men? Jesus knew their sting. A seemingly senseless death? Just look at the cross. He exacts nothing from us that he did not experience himself."

Jesus wept for the brokenness in the world.  He loved and felt the hurt of his friends.  And because of God's goodness we have someone, Jesus, who can relate to us in our hurt.  

I pray that I can continue to mourn with those who mourn but not forget that I God works in eternity time, He promises He will return and while we wait we can rest in His goodness. So the year ends I ask, what are you spending your days doing?  Are you doing things that glorify God, are you mourning with those who are mourning or are you too busy to see the pain?  Are you yourself in a season of pain and can't see God's goodness?  I hope you feel and knows God's goodness in your pain.