I'm No Good (and neither are you!)

Oh, how we love to question God; both believers and non-believers alike. We all seem to believe that we have the right to a complete explanation of all things and we have the audacity to think that we would also be able to fully understand those things once explained. Can we speak and make the land produce animals? No? Then I think it's fair to say God knows more than you or I could ever possibly understand just based on that alone.



One of the most common questions I hear people ask about believing in and/or following God is always some form of "If God is good, why would He let bad things happen to good people?" Believe me, I don't like when bad things happen any more than the next "good person" and I certainly don't understand it, but that's hardly God's fault. In a world where we all have free will, people can do what they please, good and bad, and we all suffer the consequences of each other's choices. There are plenty of times God has intervened, though He rarely gets the credit. But that's another topic for another time.

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!  For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”    It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.  For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”    Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.    One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”  But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”    Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? Romans 9:14-21

The cliff notes version: God can do what He wants whether we understand and like it or not. I for one, understand very little of what goes on in this world and even less of what goes on in God's mind. One of the Pastors from my church once said "Make up your mind as to whether you truly believe that God is the All-Powerful God He says He is, or you don't." If you believe He is who He says He is, then you should take Him at His Word, in good times and bad. He created the World, people. The entire WORLD! It's not for us to judge His motives, actions, or what we perceive to be His in-actions. (We're not even supposed to judge each other, let alone God! Unless we're holding fellow followers of Christ up to His standards, but again, another topic for another time.) We either believe He has our best interest in mind, or we don't. Marinate on that for a bit. Let it sink in real deep. Make up your mind right now. Either way that you choose to believe will alter the course of your existence.

I also hear a lot of "I'm a good person. I do good things for people and don't hurt anyone. If there is a God, He will respect that." For those of us who consider ourselves "good" and/or consider God to be too heartless to believe in Him, I pose these questions: How good are you, really? How many people have you dismissed every day of your life? Have you ever been angry? Have you ever gossiped or disobeyed your parents? Are you feeding the hungry; visiting the imprisoned; supporting the widow and the orphan? Is your life dedicated in it's entirety to helping others at a sacrificial level of your own life? No? Me either. And THAT is the point. None of us can be called "good" by God's standards on our own. Even our thoughts condemn us. God is complete Holiness, and complete Holiness can expect nothing less. (Enter our need for someone to take the heat for us before God.) Next time you point the finger at God, turn it around and point it at yourself. We're to be His agents of change in this life until His Son returns. Seems to be our fault after all.

These things can be hard to hear, but I honestly mean them as an encouragement! We're all in the same boat; from one end of the world to the other. Not one of us can measure up to God's standards, but Jesus fixed that for ALL of us who accept His sacrifice on our behalf! (That's why it's called the Good News.)

This is God's answer to all the tragedy in this world: Believe in His son, Jesus, be saved through your faith in Him alone, and then GO forth yourself and change the bad you see in the world. It's all on us. If we don't do it, well, then we can't really blame someone else for not doing it either, can we? We can't fix everything but, if we all do something, I bet we can come real close.