Is God Good?

“Faith is deliberate confidence
in the character of God whose ways
you may not understand at the time.”
– Oswald Chambers

There are two age-old questions:

1. Is there a God?
2. If so, is God good?

Many people argue that a good God would not allow so much suffering in the world. But since there is great suffering in the world, a believer must have faith – which is belief in what we cannot see with our eyes (Hebrews 1:1) – in order to have confidence in God’s character.

How can we have confidence in the character of God?

That’s no small question. So I decided to ask my 15-year-old daughter.

“Simone, I know you believe in God, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So how do you know that God is good?” I asked.

At first, she looked at me like I was trying to ask her a trick question. “No, seriously,” I assured her, “I want to know what you think. Why do you believe that God is good?”

As if this were a no-brainer, she simply responds, “All the good in the world says that there is a God and He is good. If there were no God at all, or if He was not a good God, then all the bad that is in the world right now would be so much worse. Like, double worse.”

Hmph.

I couldn’t have said it any better.

If you would like to participate in this week’s quote, please visit the hostess’ blog. If you would like to know more information about this group of Christian writers, click on In Other Words.