God IS good...

Isn't this what we mean when we say, "God is good?"  We're talking about our blessings...about the positive outcomes to our prayers.

There have been some amazing answers to prayer recently.  I've celebrated along with everyone else over them.  I may have even posted on Facebook, "God is so good!" to the answer to those prayers.

But God is also good when he says "no" to our prayers.  It started bothering me when God performed a miracle and lots of people responded with, "God is good!"...because I know there were people reading those responses whose loved ones--in a very similar situation--died.  Was God not good to them?  Didn't He care about their loved one?

I don't pretend to understand the ways of God.  I recently prayed, believing, for a miracle for a friend.  You can't imagine how badly I wanted God to heal her.  But instead, she died with cancer.  I have another friend with cancer who has been healed.  The same people cared and prayed for them both.  And I know it wasn't because of a lack of faith.  I don't know why my one friend died.  Was God good in one situation and not the other?  Absolutely not.  My friend who died and I often talked about the goodness of God and the evidences of His love which we saw in her situation.

God is always good--whether we get what we want or not.  His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts.  And He knows from the beginning of time the length of our lives and the part He wants our story to play in His kingdom.  He knows who our lives will impact and when & how to bring it all together.  God gets great glory from healing someone...but He also gets great glory when someone dies and goes to heaven.

My friend went to heaven in great style.  She was a ray of sunshine for months while she suffered.  She prayed for others and encouraged hundreds.  Some even had restored relationships with Christ because of her testimony.

God is always good.  But I don't want to imply that He is good in one person's situation and not another.   So maybe a better response when someone's prayers are answered would be for me to say, "To God be the glory!"  Because He gets glory in life...and in death.  Yes...God IS good.  No matter what.