God is Good All The Time?

God is good all the time!!

This phrase just floated past my Newsfeed in Facebook... as it does on a semi-regular basis.

What occurs to me when I read this is:

This person either has no consistent marker for the word good, or they feel tremendous pressure to proclaim things as good which they know are not.

A 5 year old gets cancer and suffers a miserable death.

Is this good? Anytime?

Of course, what usually gets tossed back is that, in our finite perspective, we can not judge God using those words. We simply don't see how he sees.

Well, if you can't use that word to judge him, then you shouldn't use that word to describe him. The word "good" in this case has been rendered completely meaningless.

(I note that many of the Old Testament authors wrote in a lament format at times... they did not seem to have these alternate definitions of words to use when speaking of their God.)

It could also be that the person who says "God is good, all the time" has fitted themselves with a thick set of rose colored glasses, that can focus on good events while being blind to pain.

There is a great Ren and Stimpy episode where Stimpy becomes concerned that Ren is not happy enough. He invents a device that MAKES Ren happy. Whether Ren feels it or not... a smile is forced and his eyes shine with glee. Smiling endlessly becomes unbearable.

Sometimes life just sucks. There is nothing to be particularly happy about... and being forced to be happy when you are sad is just one more burden. Grief is something to be passed through, not painted over.

Life isn't good ALL the time... and that is just life.