God is Great, God is Good

I work in a library, so I get to see a lot of books. I am always interested in what others are reading. Books pass through my hands that look they might be good reads. Others I can only think, “Why would you read that?” and whisper a prayer for them.

One title that has been getting a lot of attention lately is a book entitled God is not Great. Every time I see it, the childhood grace prayer comes to mind as I think “but God is great and God is good. How could anyone write a book with that title?” And again, I pray for the person who is checking the book out.

But the book made me stop and ask myself if I have ever doubted God’s greatness and goodness. I have to admit, there have been times when I have in fact doubted that God cared about what was going on in my life because of what I preceive as unanswered prayer. That’s a hard thing to own up to. Christians aren’t supposed to feel that way. But I have been angry with God on more than one occasion, doubting that his nature is always good. I am somewhat ashamed to admit it. But truth has a way of freeing us to change our attitudes. I share this because I know I do not suffer from “terminal uniqueness” and others have experienced the same feelings at times. They are not alone, nor are they bad.

That God is great is declared throughout the Bible. Psalm 19: 1-2 says, The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. In Romans 1:20 Paul writes, Ever since the creation of the world, his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. God’s greatness revealed to all through creation.

But God’s goodness is also evident. In Matthew 5:45 Jesus said God causes the sun to rise on all and the rain to fall for the righteous as well as the unrighteous. All through David’s psalms, he speaks of God’s goodness to the people of Israel even though they sinned time and again. In my own life, God’s goodness has been shown repeatedly; even when angry at times and in sin, his mercy has never waned.

I might read the book to see why the author feels that way. Just as I am not alone in my times of doubt, so too, he is not alone in feeling that God is not all he’s cracked up to be. We have a mandate from the Lord to tell the good news to the world that he loves people, enough to have died for them. For me, there is no more time to be wasted questioning God’s nature. I have been lovingly chastened for it by him. The world is full of people who question God and we need to share the news that indeed God is great, God is good.