“God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.” These refrains are rooted in our conviction that goodness is fundamentally God’s nature – both in who He is and in what He does. The psalmist declares, “You are good, and what you do is good” (Psalm 119:68).
This attribute of God must be lived out in life’s realities, enabling us to say, even in the face of trying challenges, “It is well with my soul.” (Google for the story behind this hymn.)
Consider Psalm 34. In verse 1, David writes, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” The superscription of the psalm tells us it was written during a particularly traumatic moment in David’s life (see 1 Samuel 21:10–15). Fleeing from King Saul, who wanted his blood, David escaped to Gath for shelter – only to be recognised.
While his ruse of feigning madness worked, with King Achish dismissing him as a madman and letting him go, David was sorely humiliated. However, instead of grumbling over his misfortune, he proclaimed, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (v. 8).
In his experience of fear and humiliation, David was consumed with the fact that God knows best. He may not have understood why, but far from complaining, he affirmed that God is good. The saying goes, “Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.” Christians can say, “Tough times don’t last, but those with a tough God do.”
I may be weak, but He is strong. It makes perfect sense for us to trust Him during hard times, knowing that – even when it is not visibly evident – God is good, despite it all.
Richard Lai
