God is Good

You've probably heard the beloved church saying, God is good; all the time. (You can probably fill in the next part: and all the time....yup, God is good.) 

You've probably heard some kind of misquote of the Scripture that says God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. Or maybe you just know what that Scripture actually says. 

The message is: God is good. 

The truth is: it doesn't always feel that way. 

During the time of Elisha, there was a great famine in the land. The famine was so severe that women were eating their own babies...and refusing to share the meat with others. The Bible actually records an argument between two women who agreed to eat their own children, then one reneged on the deal and stashed her baby away because she didn't really want anyone to eat him. That's how severe the famine was, and how torn the population was between survival and love. 

And it didn't look like things were going to get any better. It didn't look like Israel was learning anything about their sin from the famine, and it didn't seem that any relief was coming. The land was parched. Everything was stripped bare. There were no more storerooms to raid or amounts set aside for a rainy day. The rainy day had come and passed and now, there was just barrenness. 

Then, a messenger shows up to capture and kill the prophet because the king doesn't like the famine and blames Elisha for having spoken God's truth (as the kings liked to do). But Elisha says, just wait. By this time tomorrow, not only will the famine have broken, but there will be such abundance that what you have available will be extremely cheap. 

You'll be able to buy it with the scraps that you have left after trying to survive for so long. 

It's laughable to everyone in the room. You can't just go from famine to abundance in the blink of an eye like that. A prolonged drought and emptiness doesn't just fix itself in a day. Things don't just turn around that fast. 

But Elisha knows that God's been in control of this the whole time. He's been working on it since the very last bit of the last crop was harvested. God, who is good, has been planning good for this very moment, this most desperate moment that seems the most lost. 

God, who is good, is always coming, even when it seems He must be so far off. 

And that's the reminder for us. In those times when God doesn't seem good, when we can't wrap our heads around how things might ever actually change, when the land is parched and the shelves are bare and it doesn't seem like things could ever be good again, God is still good. 

And by this time tomorrow, the God who is good, who is always coming, might just finally be here. 

Just hold on.