Think about it. When are you most inclined to proclaim that God is good? Is it after an unexpected job promotion? After healing from a long illness? Or perhaps on hearing about the salvation of a friend you’ve been praying for? I imagine in those moments responding to “God is good” with “all the time” comes easily. It feels light on the tongue, sweet to the ears.
But what about when life takes a different turn? When prayers seem unanswered, doors remain closed, and suffering lingers?
When Is God Good?
I found myself wrestling with this thought one morning during a conversation with my mother. We were discussing a rather peculiar name, one I’d never given much thought to, until she explained the circumstances behind it. It was a trying time for a woman we both knew, fraught with uncertainty of whether she or her child would make it. Miraculously, both did. The child was called “Faithful” (not the actual name).
If you’re familiar with African culture, this kind of naming isn’t unusual; African names often carry deep meaning. We have Patience, after the parents waited long for their bundle of joy; and Mabvuto (literally “problems”), for the child birthed after a seemingly unending pregnancy and complications. Similarly, in the Bible, we see names given as a testament to God’s actions or promises. From Samuel (“heard by God”) to Ichabod (“the glory has departed”), biblical names carry much meaning. So the name “Faithful” itself wasn’t that striking.
But an important truth my mother followed this story with almost knocked me off my feet. “You know Winnie,” she added. “Whether or not they made it through, God would still be faithful.” Those words pierced my heart.
We question God’s purpose in our pain, struggling to make sense of it.
I began to wrestle with my own understanding of God’s faithfulness. Would I still call him faithful if the mother hadn’t survived? Do I see faithfulness and goodness as attributes of God? Or do I only acknowledge them in favourable circumstances? If I am honest with myself, I seldom come out of a trying situation, thinking: ‘Wow, what a good God I serve!’
A Suffering Prophet and People
“You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears.” That’s how C. S. Lewis puts it, in A Grief Observed. Troubles have a way of clouding our vision, making God’s goodness seem distant. We question God’s purpose in our pain, struggling to make sense of it even when others try to offer explanations.
I think of the prophet Habakkuk, who lamented over the wickedness in Judah. He cried out, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2). He wondered how a holy and just God could look upon wickedness and do nothing about it. If you’ve known prolonged suffering, you’ve likely asked, “How much longer, Lord, until you take it away?”
This wasn’t the response Habakkuk expected. Nor was it the one he wanted.
After a period of silence, the Lord finally responds to Habakkuk. “Look among the nations,” he says, “and see. Wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told” (Habakkuk 1:5). Depending on your church background, these words might be familiar, even stirring you to shout a hearty ‘amen!’ Finally the Lord would act! The wickedness will be swept away. Maybe.
But reading on to the next verse of this chapter, we quickly come to realise that this verse isn’t one of blessing but one of judgement. If Habakkuk thought Judah was corrupt, well God was raising up a more ruthless and impetuous people, the Babylonians, to execute judgment on them (Habakkuk 1:6). This wasn’t the response Habakkuk expected. Nor was it the one he wanted.
Navigating Suffering Within God’s Sovereignty
Can we not relate? Sometimes it feels easier to believe God hasn’t answered or even heard us at all, than to face an answer we didn’t want. A cancer diagnosis instead of healing. A rejection letter instead of an open door. We pray, hoping the doctor misread the X-ray; or that the hiring manager made a mistake. But they didn’t. Neither did God, who ordained those circumstances.
Habakkuk looked beyond his circumstances and anchored his hope in the unchanging character of God.
In this fallen world, we encounter suffering. But God remains sovereign, ultimately working every circumstance, good or evil, for the good of those who love him. He is conforming his chosen people into the image of his Son (Romans 8:28-29). His faithfulness is evident in both joy and sorrow; the birth of a child and the difficult pregnancy that brought it to be. And if he so chooses to close the womb, we take the pain to the only One who can help us see that our suffering is not for nothing.
Recognising this, we can declare with the prophet: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
In case you think this was a passive resignation on the part of Habakkuk, to the trouble that was to come, it was anything but that. He chose to look beyond the immediate circumstances and anchor his hope in the unchanging character of God. It was a decision to trust that what they were about to face would not be good, but God would continue to be good. Indeed, “the Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Psalm 145:9).
God Is Always Good and Faithful
God can be trusted whether he removes a trial from our lives or leaves us to endure it. In some cases and circumstances we’ll have to wait until Christ returns before being freed from them.
God’s faithfulness isn’t found in avoiding suffering; it’s found in his presence through it.
That is why it concerns me when people say, “God is faithful, he will not let you go through that.” That sounds uncomfortably similar to Peter. “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). This was Peter’s response to Jesus saying he “must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elder and chief priests and scribes and be killed” (Matthew 16:21). But God’s faithfulness is not found in avoiding suffering—it is found in his presence through it. He allowed Israel to go into exile. Greater still, he allowed his own Son to be nailed to a cross, for you and for me. And throughout that he never ceased to be faithful.
His Grace, and Gospel, Are Sufficient for You
I do not know why God allows some of the trials you face. But this I know: “His grace is sufficient for you, for his power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). That grace that has brought you this far, far enough that you still have the strength to read this post, is the grace that will continue to sustain you. Continue to hold on, even if only by a thread. For that thread is the grace that will sustain you.
Continue to hold on, even if only by a thread.
And when belief wavers, let this be your anchor: nowhere is God’s goodness and faithfulness more evident than in Jesus Christ. That undeserving sinners like you and I—who have nothing to offer—can stand before a holy God, forgiven, declared righteous, and adopted into his family. We can therefore say of God, with the psalmist, “You are good and do good” (Psalm 119:68)
Find encouragement from these words from a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon who said, “the grace of our Lord Jesus is sufficient to uphold thee, sufficient to strengthen thee, sufficient to comfort thee, sufficient to make thy trouble useful to thee, sufficient to enable thee to triumph over it, sufficient to bring thee out of it, sufficient to bring thee out of ten thousand like it, sufficient to bring thee home to heaven. Whatever would be good for thee, Christ’s grace is sufficient to bestow.”
