Struggling with the "goodness" of God

My biggest struggle with Christianity today is the focus on the goodness of God. It’s not that I don’t believe that God is gracious, which is good, or merciful, which is good, or that He does good things. I struggle with the “God is good, all the time – all the time, God is good” stuff. Romans 8:28 says: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” But does that mean that all things are good? Or that God is good to all people? Some scriptural examples that Paul brings up very shortly after Roman 8:28 (in Romans 9 – a section of Christianity which is largely overlooked by most churches today) Pharaoh might not agree that God is good all the time; Esau might not agree that God is good all the time. Here’s a verse that I don’t see Sunday school teachers encouraging their students to memorize – Romans 9:17: “For the scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’” This seems different than Esther 4:14’s “for such a time as this.” It’s called providence, not goodness.

I believe that the “God is good, all the time” stuff has caused major problems with the effectiveness of the witness of Christianity today. It doesn’t fit with most people’s experiences and so they blow off Christianity without even giving it major consideration. How can a person look at September 11, 2001 and say “God is good all the time”? I can still say “in all things God works for the good”, without saying “wasn’t God good on September 11th?” I don’t think the second is necessarily true. God used September 11th to cause good things to happen, but I cannot say God was good to allow that to happen.

Here are some examples from my personal experience. (These are all experiences that I was involved in directly or indirectly. I have chosen to write them from a third person perspective because I don’t want it to be about me. I want it to be about how my perspective has been shaped by these experiences.) When the parents of a five year old found out that their child had major problems with his left kidney, their first reaction wasn’t “God is good all the time.” It was more like “God was good to let us find this now before it caused major complications.” In college when one of a friend’s tests got lost causing him to almost fail a class (he would have failed the class if the professor hadn’t found the test 8 weeks later), it didn’t cause him to say “God is good”. One man I know was invited by his friend to become business partners. After agreeing to go into business and making significant financial sacrifices, the friend was “called by God” to go into the missions field. The impact that this had on the man’s view of God and missionaries wasn’t “God is good”. Another friend was let go from three different volunteer positions at his church. (To quote Scrooged, “You can’t fire them, their volunteers!”) And then when he tried to get a paying position at the church he was told that his track record for his volunteer work wasn’t very strong. Isn’t God just so good! Then when a lady I know had a miscarriage, God was not “good” to her.

So, how have I learned to view God through all of these circumstances? Well, it would seem as though I would want to blow off Christianity completely, because who wants to worship a God that is not good? Well, a person with a capitalistic world view might want to shop for a better God, but I agree with Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) It may be a hard truth, but it is still truth.

Job 2:10 “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Job 1:21 “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

HAHAHAHA!

OK - so it has been noted that mathematicians should never try to be funny. However...

What part of

do you not understand?

No more for me thanks...

Thanks to my friends and family for coming to my graduation party. And thanks to Michelle's for a great location and a great "snack".

A deeper kind of funny

1. 2+2=5 - For extremely large values of 2
   
   This is on a shirt I own. It is funnier to a person who has taken Numerical Analysis than it is to the rest of the world.
   
   
2. Why did Mozart get rid of all of his chickens?
   Because they kept saying "Bach, Bach, Bach"
   
   This is from the Baby Bach video in the Baby Einstein collection. It is funnier to a person who has taken second year music theory than to the rest of the world.
   
   
3. (Integral of) 1/(cabin)
   
   This is from my title bar at the top of my blog. It is funnier to a person who has taken second semester calculus than to the rest of the world.
   
   
4. 
   
   
   This is yesterday's Foxtrot. It is funnier to a computer scientist than to the rest of the world. I had to email Mr. Amend personally to thank him for this one. Obviously he wrote it for me.

Baby's first Star Wars quote...

OK - so we all know that she was quoting her daddy quoting his favorite Han Solo line. But I couldn't have been more proud.

Last night at dinner, I asked her if she wanted more chicken for dinner she just looked at me with a confused look on her face and simply said "It's me!"

It's an obscure quote, I know, but hey - it's me!

Online Graduation Ceremony?!?!!!

Ok - anybody that is as curious as I am as to what an online graduation ceremony looks like, I have some extra tickets ;) Email me at [removed since the ceremony is over] and I'll send you the URL and the super-secret password! The graduation ceremony is available any time from January 7th (starting at 7am MST) to February 5th. Rudy Giuliani is scheduled as the commencement speaker.

Alright already!

So, now even my wife is nagging me to blog something.... (If that is the height of the spousal nags, I must be doing ok...)

So, why has there been a three week lag between posts? Is my life that uninteresting? Has my life been that uneventful? Have I given up on thinking altogether? The answer most assuredly is no (except for a small yes on that last one).

Last week I completed my masters degree. Quite easily the greatest feat of my life as far as any determination and perseverance goes. I started in February and completed a total of 48 quarter hours - all the while holding down a full-time job (this teacher only got 2 weeks "off" over the summer -for the birth of my son, Alex), expanding my family (see the previous comment about Alex), and having a significant job change (from being a programming teacher and assistant tech to being the technology coordinator for the whole school). The transition to the new job was done in three weeks (while trying to hire a replacement for my previous position). And did I mention that the entire degree was online - including group projects? About all that could have added more stress is moving and/or getting married.

I am now done! And so the concept of writing - for a blog or otherwise - didn't seem exceedingly appealing. I am also trying to figure out graduation day - also an online event - and since I am a first generation Masters graduate, my families are talking about a graduation party.... (I will blog more on graduation as I figure things out.)

I will be filling my time for the next months getting to know the aforementioned son. And I will be team teaching a class this spring semester.

Computer mediated learning

In my masters classes right now, we are having huge discussions about how computer mediated learning is student centric. I have pointed out to many people in these discussions that "if a teacher tells a student to go to a particular web site, student obedience is called student initiated; however, if the same teacher tells the same student to open a book, student obedience is called teacher initiated." Why is that?

Anonymous confessions of a lunatic friend...

This is for a friend of mine: Sunday night my friend had a baby dedication for his 4-month old son. During the dedication, he read a letter of dedication that he and his wife (mostly his wife) wrote together. Now he is getting all sorts of compliments for the things he shared - his wife is getting nothing. Please pray for her that she would realize that the compliments are about the letter and not the horribly sappy way in which the letter was read.

XBox 360?

What happened to versions 2-359? I guess it's true what they say - technology moves pretty fast!

(Kudos to Red vs Blue)