What a difference one "O" can make!

God is Good! Even when it doesn't feel like it.

The Bible often talks about hard times. Tribulations, testings, trials, temptations. Seems like a lot of "T" words, doesn't it? Sometimes it feels like life is nothing but this. Blessings have taken a stroll and I am right in the midst of the land of the T words. You know how this feels? Sure, we all do.

Life seems really crappy sometimes. We go through sicknesses, break-ups, deaths of friends and family, loss of jobs; we get made fun of simply for standing up for the truth, we are persecuted because we don't sleep around or get drunk; we simply lose our way sometimes in all the negativity out there.

Why does God allow hard times for people that are living as righteously as they know how? For example. My brother is going through a divorce right now. An acquaintance of mine just had to go see her dad in the hospital for heart troubles and he is a pastor. All of us know times when good people go through bad things. God doesn't seem so good at times like this.

Well, lets look at the Bible's reaction. James 1:2-4 says "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

When life sucks... we are to be joyfull? We are to be fulfilled and smile and be thankful for these things? How can you be thankful for a heart attack, or for heart break for that matter? How can you find joy in losing your job or your best friend to cancer? Because you will be lacking in nothing. Now, I know when I lose friends I feel like I am lacking. I am lacking in the love and the relationship I had that is gone now. But God says that when I am weak, I am actually stronger. (2 Cor 12:10)

God is so good! Even when things are bad, we know that He will work things out for us. All we have to do is rest in Him.

We also cannot forget that not only is God Good, but Good is God! Keep reading James 1 and you come to verse 17, "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. " All good that you see is a gift from God.

Praise Him!