The Goodness of God
I’m not pulling any punches this time. Why does it seem like God answers some people’s prayers and doesn’t answer others? Why is it that some people are miraculously healed from stage 5 cancer while others pass away at stage 3? Why are there people in this world who are assaulted, abused, molested, and killed everyday? If God is love, all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere, and good, then why do these awful things happen all the time?
These questions are raw, real, and for some, needed to be answered, just like prayers that seem unanswered. The reality is that we live in a time between ages, between the fulfillment of all things in God Himself and the brokenness and sinful arrogance of this world. We live in time in which the eternal victory of Christ’s cross is our foundation and the power of His resurrection is our life, eternal and abundant. So, the question still beckons an answer: why? Why can’t God just heal every person, every time we pray? Where’s God’s goodness in the midst of this world?
I recently found myself thinking, praying, and reflecting on these questions and difficult statuses that people and organizations are in within my own relationship web. As I thought more deeply I found myself coming to a reality I hadn’t come to before: what if it’s not about unanswered prayers from God or God’s lack of activity in our lives, but rather our lack of partnering with God’s answers and action? What if it wasn’t about praying for exactly what we wanted, but rather praying for exactly what was needed? What if it is about agreeing with God’s will, healing, and goodness, rather than praying for Him to ‘start’ doing something—how arrogant of a prayer is that, too…to ask the Creator to begin doing something.
I write all of this in honest reflection about the ways in which I am seeking the Lord’s healing in lives around me, contending for breakthrough in the natural and supernatural. The ways in which I am declaring the truths of God in Christ Jesus: that by His stripes we are healed, that the power of the resurrection can bring life to all, that signs of healing, deliverance, and new life will follow those who believe, that God is good, and that God is able to more than I ask, think, or imagine. I sit in authentic desperation for healing in many lives around me, I write with a heart grieving the death of many around me, and I reflect honestly about my desire for things to happen the way I want them, but more importantly, and most vitally the way the Lord wants them—which I believe is the way we need them.
I don’t know why some are healed and others are not when we pray. I’m perplexed by this occurrence in my life and the lives of many around me. I look at our Savior’s life and every person He prayed for was healed. I long to be One with the Lord in such a manner that each person I encounter experiences the love of God in such a way that they know His goodness, grace, healing, deliverance, and salvation. I look at the experiences in my life and I cannot pinpoint a certain thing that led to healing other than Jesus. I don’t know if I can base any healing on one thing from humanity other than our reception. The only thing I can think of, in all honesty, that it boils down to is God’s goodness.
When we align ourselves with God’s goodness and we live in a lifestyle that receives this goodness, is bathed in this goodness, and declares this goodness, I believe things change. It may not look like we want, but God is good and that never changes. This means that it may not look like somebody receiving healing on earth, but rather being fully healed eternally in heaven. This may mean that we might not get the job, pass the test, receive the promotion or opportunity, or that we may not be in place we have always wanted, but I can tell you that when we submit ourselves to receiving and giving God’s love in the best way we can, we will be found in the best for us: the goodness of God.
This weekend I was at The Call Azusa at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with over 70,000 others as we gathered in unity asking for God to pour out revival like He did 110 years ago at the Azusa Street Revival. I personally saw healing over backs, necks, ears, stomach issues, and even saw a right leg grow out to match the length of a left leg (come on, Jesus!). It was an incredibly powerful time and continues to stir me on to partner with God’s goodness wherever I am. During this time, a worship leader from Bethel declared out in their set, “Sometimes we need to worship when we know it and when we don’t feel it, because He’s good regardless.”
I write this all to state this: I don’t know why some are healed and others are not. It’s a difficult reality that have in this world that God is all-powerful and all-good, and yet still awful things take place everyday. I don’t know why some prayers are answered immediately and others are not. But I do know this: Jesus modeled prayer, the goodness of God, and healing in ways in which He calls us to partner with Him in greater things too!
Jesus showed us that prayer is not about a monologue in which we sit back and do nothing. He prayed, “Not my will but Yours be done” and then He got up out of the garden, took the cross, and become the answer to that prayer. Maybe we shouldn’t be looking at people and their statuses of health and trouble through the lens of “where was God”, but rather where we were. Maybe we should be asking ourselves, “If God is always at work, if I am truly filled with the Spirit of God, and if I am truly an encounter of the goodness of God, then how can I partner with God who is already at work, how can I move in the power of the resurrection, and how can bring forth His goodness into every situation, person, and place?
Still, this may not answer questions, but at least it is a call to look honestly at ourselves and assess the ways in which we can truly partner with God, the ways in which we can become the answer to prayers, and the ways in which we can encounter His goodness and be an encounter of His goodness on the earth. I believe our goal, regardless of how we feel is to declare God’s goodness, partner with His goodness, and display His goodness. Maybe, just maybe these steps are partnering with God in praying, “Let Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.” And to that prayer, to us becoming a part of the answer to that prayer, I say, “Yes, and amen.”
