Do we still believe God is good? We wrestle with this when we hit hard times. Yet God promises that good will come from bad things. Even when we don’t see it. We have trouble believing this scripture.

"We must stay grounded in our faith within the waiting. This is when we must remember how He has delivered us before. We can also be fortified to know that God cares more about our soul and our eternity than our body. So when we come to God in our illness and our body’s are not healed we can rejoice that we will go to Him. With this perspective we can see ALL is still being worked for our good."

Let’s look at these specific parts of the scripture.

God causes everything to work for our good. There are many things we don’t understand. Yet we know that God was there in the beginning

Causes everything to work together. He is in the middle of it.

For the good for those who God and are called according to His purpose for them. He is in the end.

In knowing that He was in the beginning, He is in the middle and He is at the end we can have peace because we trust Him. Faith is having confidence and trust in the character of God. We find His character in the Bible.

Let’s look at the story of Joseph

Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob. He was the youngest of 11 boys. All the brothers were jealous of Joseph and his position with their father that they sold him into slavery and told Jacob that he was eaten by wolves.

Eventually, he catches a break and gets to work for Potiphar, a wealthy and powerful Egyptian. Unfortunately, Joseph is then accused of rape by Potiphar’s wife. He was then imprisoned.

While he is imprisoned he meets 2 men who have dreams that he interprets for them. One day both men are collected to visit the king. Joseph told them to remember him. Many years later, the 1 man that had survived and was working for the king was asked if he could interpret the king's dream. He could not but he knew someone who could.

Joseph was brought out of imprisonment and to interpret the king’s dream and was put in charge of the plan to prepare and get Egypt through the famine that would come, which was prophesied in the king’s dream.

During the famine, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to get their portion of grain. The brothers did not recognize Joseph, but Joseph recognized them. Eventually, the brothers would come to know that it was Joseph. They feared what Joseph would do to them.

Genesis 50:19-20 NLT But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

This all came to Joseph through the healing of His reflection. If your circumstances aren’t good yet, He isn’t done. Don’t presume the end by the beginning. We all can look back and see good in the midst of our journey’s. We cannot forget that discipline is part of love.

Philippians 1:12-13 NLT And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ.

It’s all about perspective. Our suffering needs a new perspective. Perspective changes things. Knowing this, we must resist trying to explain the unexplainable.

Deuteronomy 29:29 ICB There are some things the Lord our God has kept secret. But there are some things he has let us know. These things belong to us and our children forever. It is so we will do everything in these teachings.

There are certain things we will never know and many will judge Him based on what we don’t know. This is a dangerous place to be, because this is not faith and trust. So we must ask ourselves, can we accept this? Can we let God be God?

We don’t need to know it all and argue. Many times people who don’t know God just need our love, testimony, and empathy. God’s good is different from our good. He wants to bring us to His perspective.

Isaiah 55:8-9 ICB The Lord says, “Your thoughts are not like my thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. And my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.

Job 38:2-4 NLT “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.

Job 42:1-3 NLT Then Job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.

We must trust that His good is best for us. That it is better than anything we could come up with. All we need is childlike faith. Yet what we have lived through is standing in the way of that faith. We must reflect and heal as Joseph did and see all the ways God has delivered us and made a way for us, trusting that He will do it again and again and again.

So then why are we trying to figure it all out? Because our focus is on all the hard things that have happened and not on God. We want to mitigate or reduce our suffering, yet all we are doing by focusing on the hard that we have lived through is reliving it a thousand times when God intended us to live through it only once. This is called rumination.

Philippians 4:11-13 NLT Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

We need a different perspective to know that He has purpose for our suffering and in this way we can trust Him in everything. It is not by our strength that we do any of this. God is able because He is God.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 MSG Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.