How can God be good if this is happening to me?

Perhaps this is one of the deepest universal questions, driving us into cognitive dissonance when suffering lingers. When layers of grief and loss take us under, we can barely breathe. We feel like Job.

But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness came (Job 30:26 CSB).

My days fly by faster than a runner; they flee without seeing any good (Job 9:25 CSB).

What we see and experience doesn’t seem to line up with what God says. God tells us that He is always good. When I felt like my suffering was Job-like, I had to wrestle with this, through tears and desperately humbled fears, begging Him to resolve this cognitive dissonance. 

Let’s battle the false thinking, sister in Christ. Let’s have a “praise interruption” with truths from Scripture, battling lies of our enemy, God’s enemy.

God is good

Jesus says, “No one is good except God alone” (Mk. 10:18 ESV).

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good (Ps. 106:1; 107:1; 118:1; 136:1 ESV).

How good is the God we adore!
Our faithful, unchangeable friend.

(“This God is the God we adore,” Hart, J., 1857)

God does good

Maybe that’s really the harder question as we wrestle. Remember that when He created all things in Genesis, He called them “good?” This Hebrew for “good” tells us they were valuable, useful, and pleasurable. 

But then…sin entered our good world in Genesis 3.

Now, the enemy’s temptation in the garden is the same temptation for us, because we’re all born into a world fallen in sin. Through that apple’s bite, we’re born thinking we know what’s good in the same way as our all-knowing and loving God, who tells us He is always good…and always does good. In our inborn, self-focused pride and desire for life to be easy and comfortable, we’re so easily tempted to turn away from God when we don’t experience what we want. When we suffer.

But are we compounding our pain when we give in to this temptation? Praise God that this hymn sings such Biblical truth about Him, our unchanging, eternally good, wise, powerful, and loving God!

His love is as great as his power
and knows neither knows measure nor end.

My loving and good God is with me

Because the longer these thoughts go on, our emotions can take over. Like Job, who was a mature believer, we can begin spiraling into doubt when more lies of the accuser attack: “God must have abandoned me because I can’t feel Him.”

Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him (Job 9:11 ESV).

Sister in Christ, let’s fight back, by His power in us!

Whether we see or feel Him, God is always with those who have put their trust in Christ for salvation, by His indwelling Holy Spirit, “who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 1:22 ESV).

In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:13-14 CSB).

For Christ is the first and the last;
his Spirit will guide us safe home.

My good God is for me

When we suffer long, we’re fighting a spiritual war with many battles, aren’t we? We’re constantly battling tempting lies of the enemy of our souls, in the same way that Job did.

The same way that Jesus did.

Jesus willingly entered this fallen world of sin, living through continual suffering and all the temptations it brings. He battled successfully, by the power of the Holy Spirit! Hallelujah!

• Isn’t Jesus for us as His beloved bride? 
• Didn’t He die for us, taking all of the punishment we deserve for our pride and unbelief? 
• Isn’t He alive right now? 
• Isn’t He with us by His Spirit? 
• Isn’t He praying for us, according to His perfect and good will?

He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Col. 1:13 CSB).

Yet I am not destroyed by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face (Job 23:17 CSB).

In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27 CSB).

Turning TO my gracious and good God for healing as I suffer

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way (Ps. 139:23 CSB).

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed (1 Pet. 2:24 CSB).

For you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9 CSB).

We’ll praise him for all that is past
and trust him for all that’s to come.

Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, Copyright © 2022

Singing to my good God as I suffer

Into every battle, I need to sing Scripture and songs that echo Scripture. Why? Singing uniquely affects our bodies, emotions, and thoughts. When I can barely breathe from loss, singing to our Lord helps me turn TO our good God rather than AWAY from Him as the enemy desires. I’m making weekly playlists to do this, into battles on every side. If you would like to fight in the same way, sign up and they will come to your email with my personal prayers as a sister in Christ walking alongside you. Or perhaps you might find any of the other resources below helpful. Let’s both “dwell on these true and praiseworthy things,” as we suffer!