Is God Good?
My relationship with God has been shaky at times. There are times when my faith can take a beating. The enemy knows my weaknesses and really plays on them to turn me away from God. I come from a background of not knowing God at all, that is, until I was saved over 4 years ago. I have since then endeavoured to spend a lot of time with God, developing a close personal relationship with Him. Part of my character is not trusting people very easily. They have to show me that they are trustworthy before I can truly trust them. This even applies to God. In fact God has made it His mission to show me that I can trust Him.
My calling and purpose in God I have been told is in 'Inner healing and Deliverance', as well as 'teaching'. My husband and I have been ministering to people within our own Healing and Deliverance Ministry for the last three years. I have also helped out in various other Church organisations. Each week I see hurt and broken people, including myself, who are simply needing a miracle. Our world is full of death, suffering, hurt, pain and trauma. I spend a lot of time praying for people waiting to see Gods promises come to pass. I see minor changes happening in their lives, as well as my own starting to unfold, but the major issues seem to always be still there. There is a lot of talk going around about revival, and how there is going to be a huge outpouring of Gods Holy Spirit upon His people in the way of signs, healings, wonders and miracles. I for one cannot wait for this and know it will happen, but sometimes the waiting and the let-downs can cause so much doubt and unbelief within us.
One night whilst feeling particularly sad and defeated after a day of praying for some very broken people, the devil spoke into my mind and said, "You know that God is just a glorified version of me don't you. He pretends to be this good guy, but really, what have you actually seen Him do for you? At least with me you know what you are getting. If you bowed down and worshipped me, I could give you all your hearts desires, and you know I could". "Go away", I said to him, "I will never worship you". He said to me, "You know, you believe He is so good, but really He makes you jump through hoops all the time. Just when you think you are getting somewhere He moves the finish line! Ha! And another thing what kind of a God who calls Himself 'Love' creates such a fallen world. You might say that it was perfect when He created it, and It was my fault that Adam and Eve sinned, but doesn't the Word say your beloved God 'knows all things'. He knew it would happen, He knew the world would be full of hurt, sin, grief and suffering yet He still created it. What kind of love is that". ! I have to say as much as I didn't want to believe what that sneaky snake was saying, what He spoke impacted me greatly, because it seemed true. God did create this world knowing full well what would happen. How can God be good when all this is happening everywhere around us. Surely a good God wouldn't allow any of this! The enemy kept hammering these horrible thoughts into my head, until I started to seriously doubt God's authenticity. I came into agreement with them, and started to see God differently. It disconcerted me terribly. Finally it was all too much for me, I broke down one night and told God I didn't believe in Him anymore. I still loved Him, but my opinion of Him had fallen so greatly that I didn't feel as though I liked Him anymore, let alone keep working for Him and promoting Him. I went to sleep devastated feeling as though I could never get back the respect I once had for Him.
The next day I was moping around in mourning for my loss when my husband Mark said "Go and ask Him why all this has to happen, I am sure He will tell you". I replied to Mark "Why would He even care what I think". Mark said "Do you care what Annahlise and Brayden (our children) think of you". Of course I did, and apparently God really cared what I thought of Him too, because when I approached Him He cleared up all my bad feelings of how I saw Him immediately. This is what He spoke to me: "You need to trust me that I am good. You will never completely understand me or why I do what I do. I am God and I have wisdom beyond imagination. Man could never do what I do because human intelligence cannot comprehend the laws and nature of God. There is always a 'cause and an effect' that has to be put in place. It is the law of physics and the natural law of balance. Negative versus positive. Without this law of opposites, creation 'could not' or 'would not' exist. I did not create a fallen world. It is natural, it is the atmosphere and this is how it has to be. One balances the other. Light versus dark, negative versus positive - it is, and it must exist. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things’ (Isaiah 45:7, NKJV). However I have developed a way out of the darkness. His name is Jesus! Lack of knowledge is why my children are suffering. They also choose laziness, because they think it is too hard and would rather just wait for someone else to come along and do it for them. Laziness is the spirit over my people. Procrastination is rife. I am going to break it off my children and together we will change the world. Heaven is opposite to earth - Light versus dark. There is much darkness upon the earth. I have created a new Heaven and a new earth, which are both light. The darkness will no longer coexist on earth with the light, but will both still be in existence to maintain the balance." (He is of course referring to end times when the devil and his cohorts will be cast into the lake of fire which is where the darkness lies).
I said to Him, "Why didn't you do this from the beginning, it would have stopped all this suffering"? This is what He spoke, "Those who will exist in the new earth will know where they came from. They will know what their God did for them, and they will live a life of great peace. There will be no evil, there will be no darkness. Without this outworking process there would have been ignorance, and ignorance is a sin. And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering (Numbers 15:27, KJV). Sin is sin! Ignorance is the one sin I had to outwork before the earth could be made all light. Adam and Eve had to be tempted with the tree of knowledge of 'good and evil', because where there is knowledge, there is no ignorance. You have to choose light and turn away from darkness but before you can do this you have to understand the difference. Their choice to eat of this tree enabled evil to enter the world. As a righteous God I cannot look upon any sin or evil. I am light. There is no dark in me. I am good, I am just. I am pure. I require justice. I have to judge the world because I am a righteous judge. I have to punish the sins of the unrighteous. I love all my children equally and it grieves me greatly but sin must be destroyed because I simply abhor it. It cannot be a part of my Kingdom." (Remember God even had to turn His back on His own son Jesus when our sin was laid upon Him because He couldn't even look upon Him). And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46, NKJV). He then told me to pray with my whole heart for the lost and broken souls that grieved me so greatly. I did. I wept as I prayed for them. He showed me that at that moment He had laid upon me a burden for the lost and the hurting. "I have heard your cries," He told me, "That is why I have made you a light. You have the light, you carry the light and through me your light will teach truth to show the lost the way"!
Throughout all this God showed me that He is good. So good in fact that He mapped out His whole plan from beginning to end, so that no stone will be left unturned. I loved this explanation He gave me and it really helped me to see why the world is in such a horrible state but it still didn't help me to truly believe and trust in His goodness when I as well as so many were suffering. He asked Me to take the word good back to the original transcripts. This is what I found:- Towb is the Hebrew word for good and means moral, happy, fair and kind. Three Greek words in the New Testament are translated as the adjective “good.” The first is kalos, which means something free from defects, and beautiful. The second is agathos, referring to moral excellence, something that is worthy of admiration and the third is chrestos, which means something that is useful, profitable, or serviceable, later broadening to include kindness, goodness of heart. God sees Himself as good. He sees His justice system also as good. He sees his chastening as good. The problem is that man does not like to be disciplined. Discipline brings us back in line when we don't walk in His ways. God's ways are good. God's ways are just. God has to judge sin because he is so moral. God really is abundantly good all the time. When we don't believe this it becomes unbelief and can actually block us from receiving His goodness. When we truly trust this and believe in His goodness and work with Him we will live in freedom, in peace, in health and prosperity!
By Tania Francis