God is Good (all the time?)

Recently, there have been some favorable answers from God in regard to requests that have been made by some of my fellow believers. Friends have been healed, sickness has been diverted, money supplied, protection given..."God is good" is the frequent response. And He is.  Oh how we rejoice in His goodness toward us!  Yet, what do we say when things don't go as we had hoped?  What about when a child dies, when a job is lost, when healing isn't given yet, when a marriage falls apart, when grief refuses to leave our hearts or when God says "no".  What I've said is: I wish I had a magic wand to take this pain away or I'm sorry God hasn't answered yet.

The thing is...the response to the good news, God is good, is true.  The response we give to bad news is usually false pretense.  Why don't we say "God is good" when someone shares a heartache?  It seems when we are at that point of suffering, hearing truth is all we need, yet it is rarely given.  We are stumped for words and end up saying something ridiculous that we wish we could take back later (or am I the only one??).   I'm not proposing we heartlessly shirk off pain with a "God is still good, get over it" remark.  I just need to remember that God is good no matter my circumstances.  God is good when our hearts are broken.  God is good when this life just doesn't make sense (and boy is that often).  God is good all the time, because all the time...God is good.

When others behave badly to us, it should only stir us up the more heartily to give thanks unto the Lord, because He is good; and when we ourselves are conscious that we are far from being good, we should only the more reverently bless Him that He is good. We must never tolerate an instant’s unbelief as to the goodness of the Lord; whatever else may be questioned, this is absolutely certain, that Jehovah is good; His dispensations may vary, but His nature is always the same. (C. H. Spurgeon).