How Can God Be Good and All-Powerful?

How Can God Be Good and All-Powerful?

Sometimes our life holds so much confusion it is difficult to see God’s hand in our circumstances. It is like walking through a fog. But we have been told God’s kindness and goodness can be seen no matter what has happened or is happening in our life right now. 

This is for the woman who struggles to understand how God is good to her and in her suffering. Maybe He is good intellectually, but trusting in His goodness is hard to understand. She struggles with discouragement, distrust, and disbelief because life has just been so confusing and cloudy. How is God all-powerful and still good? 

Let’s look at the idea of God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness. How do they meet? I think the psalms are a perfect place for God to look at this idea. As we dig into Scripture, I invite you to set aside any ideas that you can fully understand God. We strive to know God deeper, and He has asked us to do so, but we also realize that God has not allowed us to fully understand Him either. 

When studying the psalms I often see this theme repeated over and over again. The truth is we serve both a perfect powerful and perfectly personal God. In all God does He is perfectly powerful. His power extends beyond what we could have ever comprehend. We know this to be true. 

God does not deal with mankind just in abstract, but in an intimate and very personal way. God is not sitting on His throne waiting for us to mess up or reward us when we do good. From the beginning God “walked” with man. Even in the Garden, God started His relationship with man by walking with him every single day. God longs for intimacy with us. Sin came into the world and this intimacy is no longer perfect, but God is still perfectly personal to us! He still seeks us perfectly in a very deep and personal way. 

We see this because we know the names of people who walked with God in the Old Testament. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, and Isaiah. Those are just a few names of people God spoke to, guided, and spent time with personally. Not only in the Old Testament, but the New Testament as well. Jesus, theWord of God, walked with 12 men. The God of the universe put on the flesh of mankind to save us, but also to show us the Father. Read these psalms that reveal God is personal and powerful! 

5 Verses That Reveal God is Powerful and Personal

Psalm 9:9-10

Psalm 34:17-18  

Psalm 46:7

Psalm 70:4-5

Psalm 138:6

If you are wondering how God can be both powerful and good, while suffering still lingers in the world, you are not alone. Many people (especially in the Bible) struggled with this thought. Read the entire book of Job and many of the Psalms touch on this subject. However, I want to take you to Ruth as we close today. In the story of Ruth we read about a lot of heartache. Widows, poverty, good-byes, shame, and bitterness define the first part of Ruth’s story. In some ways the Book of Ruth is also the story of Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi. Both women had endured a lot of heartache. Neither of these women could see how God was going to work those things out. 

Until one day He did. In stepped a man named Boaz. Once Naomi saw a way out of the heartache, she said these words: “And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead….” God had not forsaken His kindness. And in the depth of pain, heartache, and loss Naomi declared there is hope! 

Many believe Boaz is a picture of Christ for us. When we think about how God can be good in suffering, we need only look at the cross. The night is gone because Christ spent three nights in the grave. Christ is the reason we can see God’s goodness.