About four decades ago in the midst of a very painful crisis God laid the foundation of my basic theology which has carried me through all these years since. I had been walking with the Lord for about five years in my experience with Jesus during those early years had been remarkable ones. Everything in my Christian life were going astonishingly well and it seemed to me that the victorious Christian life was pain free. Everything changed in an instant as a result of a heartbreaking event that pulled the rug absolutely out from under me. It seemed like everything in my life had been falling into perfect place, and in one day all that changed. During those days of intense pain the only thing I knew to do was to shut myself in and seek the Lord, and for the first time in my life I hung out in the book of Job. Two simple truths that that God revealed to me during those dark and difficult days have underpinned my walk with the Lord ever since. About the third or fourth day of asking God “why” this devastating thing had happened to me, He spoke as close to audibly as I’ve ever heard Him speak to me. He first said, “Chuck, I am big, and I can do anything I want to with your life, and I don’t have to explain myself to you.” I know that sounds kind of harsh, but that’s not the way I heard it at all. As a matter of fact, it brought great comfort to me to know that My life was in His hands and not in the hands of circumstances or other people. He was Lord, and He was Lord of my life and therefore He did not owe me an explanation for anything that He was doing with my life. That would’ve been enough for me to hear, but He had something else to say. He secondly said, “and Chuck I am GOOD.” He wasn’t just BIG; He was GOOD, and therefore His goodness was always at work in everything He did. As a matter of fact, even when the enemy of my soul is the culprit of any situation in my life, the God who is big and good is there and prevails. Because He was both big and good I could always trust Him. I concluded that day that His goodness was to never be on trial even though things might happen in my life that didn’t make sense to me. I could trust that the one who is both big and good. If God is big that I don’t have the right to complain, and if God is good then why should I.
