⁶ … for he who comes to God must believe that … He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Can God really be good and at the same time sovereign? This verse implies that He is good for He rewards us when we seek Him. But many people have found that following God in faith is not always accompanied by good things. For those in Muslim lands, conversion to Christ often subjects a new believer to persecution and even death. These things we easily accept because of the exaltation of martyrdom in Christian history. There seems to be no higher act of faith than to die for being loyal to Christ. Indeed, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones” (Ps 116:15).

But what about suffering as being part of a fallen world: the devastation of cancer, unremitting pain of degenerative diseases or permanent disability due to human negligence. Some people resolve the seeming incompatibility of God’s goodness and bad situations in life with the idea that He is somehow not sovereign after all; for if God were sovereign and good, He would presumably not have allowed such unfortunate things to happen in our lives.

So the temptation is to moderate either His goodness or sovereignty. But to do so plants us firmly on unstable ground. If God is not in absolute control, what hope do we have that in the end He will prevail? How do we know He is able to keep His promises? If He is not good, then all is lost for He is a capricious deity, no different than the Greek gods of mythology. We cannot know what to expect, and His promises are nothing more than fickle whims to taunt us like a carrot hanging on a string.

Our verse for today pictures God as good, who does reward us for seeking Him. This is a basic tenet of faith. Ultimately, we know this, not by human experience, but by revelation. Life experiences will always tempt us away from faith. No human escapes the suffering of life, from a new born baby’s cry to a person’s last gasp for air. Job puts it this way, “For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). Even Jesus said, “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6:34b). “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Faith that pleases God means that despite all life’s claims to the contrary, one holds on to the goodness of God as a hope like “… an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast…” (Heb 6:19). A certainty that God is good!

Lord, although my circumstances don’t always seem good, I believe Your goodness will one day be seen as brightly as the noon-day sun!