Life is hard, God is good.

I was thinking on the way to work this morning about how often I think about things but in the wrong order.  The title of the post today contains two statements that both are true.  And if we think about both, we tend to think about them in this order.  We know life is hard.  It is all around us.  We have to bury loved ones who die far too early.  We experience sickness and pain.  We know those or may be those who struggle with depression and anxiety.  Life is hard.  And then we sort of tack on the ending, "but God is good." as if that is the thing that will allow us to be able to endure the hard times that life has to throw at us.  When we have a few moments of decency, we simply wait for the shoe to drop and more hard times to come.  This is defining life by the statement "life is hard."

Romans 8 seems to take a different approach.  It begins instead with the premise that God has forgiven us in Christ and we are not condemned.  And if we are not condemned than we have the greatest gift of all and therefore we know that God is working out all things for our good.  (Romans 8:28) I want you to read that again.  All things are being worked for good.  We do not have to endure.  We do not have to engage the world with a defeated attitude that waits for the next bad thing, God is good.  If we define life in the reverse order and start from the premise that God is good, our perspective changes.  Now we are not enduring life, but as Romans 8 says, we are overwhelmingly conquering life.  We see the pain as challenges, difficulties as opportunities for God to show how good He really is. 

The fundamental difference as I see it in my life is a question of who is first.  If I am first in my thoughts I will first think about how hard life is and then secondly think about the goodness of my God.  If I am thinking about God and His kingdom first than I will think of God being good in all things. 

Please note that this is not a call to minimize the pain.  The Scriptures are clear that the statement life is hard is true, and particularly true for believers.  We do not pretend there is no pain.  We do not fake a smile and pretend we do not hurt.  Instead we embrace the hurt and thank God for the opportunity to see just how good He can be.  So, God is good.  And Life is hard.  God help us to keep the order straight.