David Bahn – Reflections

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
²     Serve the LORD with gladness!
    Come into his presence with singing!

³ Know that the LORD, he is God!
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
    and his courts with praise!
    Give thanks to him; bless his name!

⁵ For the LORD is good;
    his steadfast love endures forever,
    and his faithfulness to all generations.

Randy Alcorn’s book titled, If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil made a big impression on me. Alcorn explores the age-old question of why a good and all-powerful God allows suffering and evil in the world. Alcorn examines this issue from a biblical perspective, addressing theological, philosophical, and emotional aspects of human suffering.

I was deeply impacted by his commentary on our narrow view of evil and how we relegate it most often to experiences and events we can see or experience ourselves. He convicted me by noting how we get upset about flooding in our town or terrible injustice we see on TV, but don’t care about other evils in the world of which we are unaware. Our view of evil is very narrowly-focused.

God has a bigger view of evil than we do. His is not only global or universal, but encompassing all of time, and aware of every nuance of evil’s intent. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. His plan is larger than momentary affliction – even if momentary refers to years of suffering. His agenda is eternal doom and ultimate despair. Add to that the world’s values and goals which are against the ultimate goodness and good will of God. Worse yet, our fallen human flesh is the behind-the-scenes enemy of all that is truly good.

Against all that, we profess that God is not only sovereign, all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present, but also good, gracious, and lovingly kind. But even so, evil is all around us. Pain, suffering, injustice, abuse, deceit, immorality, and ungodliness is everywhere. No wonder we want to accuse God of either not being good or not being powerful.

We are told here that we should praise God because he is good. Good, honorable, virtuous, holy, just and true. How is that so in the face of the fact that God allows it to go on and on?

The answer is not simple, but clear: God has a complete view of all that is happening throughout the universe and throughout time. His upper story view of all things includes the ultimate outcome of all that is happening throughout all of time and space. Why does God allow evil to continue? So that people will repent (2 Peter 3:9). Why does evil not have the last word? Because God works good from evil (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28). The clearest evidence of that is Jesus’ suffering and death which gave way to resurrection, glory, and our eternal salvation.

Why must we remember that God is good? Because we are his people. We did not make ourselves. We did not choose him to be our God. He created us and chose us for his eternal good pleasure and our everlasting joy and blessing. We are sheep. He is the good shepherd. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But our Good Shepherd, Jesus, came to give us life. Abundant life. More than enough life. Life that overflows our being into eternal praise.

If God is good – and he surely is – praise him!