God is good, all the time. We all know this. We say it when he heals our illnesses, or when we ace our school classes, or even when the Astros get a lucky win. It’s easy to remember that God is good when our lives are good. But is he still good when our lives take a turn for the worse? Is he still good when we pray for blessings but they don’t arrive? We seem to remember his goodness far less during these times. Maybe our faith in him is even shaken.
This was not the case for Daniel’s three friends when they were exiles in Babylon. They were faithful worshipers of Yahweh, and it landed them in trouble. Yet they trusted that the one true God would rescue them. No doubt they were praying hard for that rescue. But then in verse 18 they expressed a massive display of faith: “even if God gives us no rescue, he is still good, and we will die worshiping him.” The story ends with God showing his great glory to Nebuchadnezzar by indeed saving them. Yet for a moment in time, these three Hebrews were ready to face the darkest circumstances with the faithful shout, “God is good.”
Sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayers. Sometimes suffering happens. This is a tough reality to accept. But is our faith shaken? Do we still have the strength to trust God’s infinite goodness even when we can’t see it?
Interestingly, the book of Daniel as a whole testifies dramatically to God’s sovereignty. All the famous stories we know are in the first half of the book, but then the second half gets maybe ten times as awesome. It’s a wildly fun read. It looks ahead toward the end times that we still have not yet reached—a time in which evil will reach its greatest strength and then be gloriously conquered by Christ, the Son of Man himself and the Son of the Ancient of Days. How awesome will that redemption be! And with a view toward that future, we should be able to endure all suffering now, knowing that God is good and will certainly restore us!
When things go wrong, God is still good, and will one day show it in full. God won’t always free us from suffering when we ask him to. In fact, Jesus himself prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that the Father would save him from crucifixion. Yet despite his great dread, he then prayed, “not as I will, but as you will.” This faith from Jesus can be ours as well. Even when life is not good, God is good; and even when life is out of control, God is sovereign. Continue to pray for blessings, because God loves to bless; but even when he does not, worship the Lord just as joyfully.
