Trusting God’s Goodness

Looking at the power struggles in the world and hearing the desires of ambitious leaders, I wonder if they ever stop to think that none of what they want will go with them when they die. 
As I read Steven Charnock’s amazing book, I also wonder how many of us belittle the goodness of God by trying to run our own lives and make personal wants our rule for each day.

The end of Job’s story showed that even this man that God called ‘righteous’ was guilty of forgetting who God is and allowing the disasters he experienced tell him lies about God’s goodness.

Charnock writes extensively on this topic. His words are a challenge to condense, but have me thinking about how the world, even the church, and also myself react to the events of life and to the daily news. He points out how the devil, by his temptation of Adam, envied God and the glory of Him creating goodness. 

Even more, those who challenge God in any way forget that He sent His Son to suffer for us, and His Spirit to enable us, both expressions of His goodness. Refusing to live accordingly is a great ingratitude and a perilous sin. It refuses to admit or repent sin. It may think that if God loves His humble children, He is okay with those who rule their own lives, and thus appreciates human effort. This also denies His holiness and righteousness.

Those who trust Him suppose He is good, no matter what our eyes see, but any who distrust Him see evil based on what they do see. Why else call events like storms “acts of God” and refuse insurance for those who suffer from hurricanes and the like? Job expressed some of this suspicion in his misery: 

I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. (Job 30:20)

Many who profess faith in God ignore what He says, blame Him (or the devil) for all things uncomfortable, without considering that trials can be rebukes, tests, or disciplines. The Israelites thought their miraculous deliverance from Egypt and their security in the wilderness was intended to prepare them up for slaughter.

Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:3)
They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe. (Psalm 78:41–42)

If a day is cloudy, do I distrust that the sun will not shine any more? If I have an ailment, do I distrust my doctor for the ill-tasting prescription given me? If I worry instead of pray, have I stopped believing that God cares? Or is my problem lack of humility?

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)

To reject God’s goodness in favor of ‘I want what I want’ becomes foolish when I say such things aloud. Yet how do the leaders of this world react to such ideas? It is a wonder that any human can refuse to “lift up their eyes to heaven, and solicit nothing but the contrivance of their own brain and the industry of their own heads. They disown Divine goodness, and approve themselves as their own gods and the spring of their own prosperity. They run not to God in their necessity to crave His support, and deny either His power or the disposition of His will to sustain and deliver them. They must have very mean sentiments, or none at all, of this perfection, or think Him either too empty to fill them, or too churlish to relieve them; that He is of a narrow and contracted temper, and that they may sooner expect to be made better and happier by anything else than by Him. As we contemn His goodness by a total omission of those duties which respect our own advantage and supply (such as prayer) so we condemn Him as the chiefest good by an omission of the due manner of any act of worship which is designed purely for the acknowledgment of Him.” (Charnock)

Yet those who profess faith can do it too — built churches, hospitals, give great sums, as if God will free them from sickness, give them riches, and make them always happy, as if God will not to part with anything unless He in some measure is paid for it because He will not grant goodness without a bribe.

PRAY: I echo the psalmist and modify what I say to You from Psalm 9: “Arise, O Lord! Let not our foolish ideas prevail; let the nations and Your people (me included), be judged before you! Put all of us in godly fear, and let us remember that we are but sinners who need Your saving grace and who need to trust You and Your incredible goodness.”