God is good.

Too often I'm guilty of punctuating a positive statement with "God is good" or some variation of it. The problem though, is that when I say "I got a new job, God is good" or "awesome time up at the cabin, God is awesome" what I'm implying is that because something favorable happened, God is good.

The truth is, God is good when times are terrible too. God is good when someone dies. God is good when you lose your job. God is good when we aren't good.

If we tether God's goodness to a "good" time or a favorable event, we end up reducing his glory and creating for ourselves a genie-like God who exists only when good things happen. A spoiling and coddling God who is inexplicably absent during the hard times. I'm guilty of this completely.

It's just much easier to reflect on God's goodness during calm waters and perfect weather. When it starts raining, we turn to an "unjust" God who "must have forgotten about us."

C.S. Lewis, in his typical confrontational and largely irrefutable fashion says "We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven." We want a God that will bounce us on his knee asking about only our best aspects. What we avoid is the Father who sees our hearts for what they are and loves us anyways.

No one wants to feel that naked.

"God is good" is not apart of an if/then statement. It is not a piece to an algorithm. It is not reason enough to only account for blessings. God is good because God is love.

And, as I'm sure I'll find myself pontificating on in the future. Love hurts sometimes.

God is always good. Please join me in trying to remember that when when it doesn't feel like it.