God's Goodness: A Rock in All Storms
In this excerpt from an interview with Pastor Ed Buch, we explored the truth that God is good, and acts kindly toward all His creatures, even in spite of the injustice and suffering we’ve experienced and seen in the world. Pastor Ed’s childhood was riddled with pain. He was often neglected by his parents, and was molested by a relative for years. This left him bitter, hateful, and suicidal. When he started going to church later in his life, he would tell people he believed that God was good, though as he looks back now he can see he didn’t really believe this in his heart. It wasn’t until he came to Pure Life that God was able to break through and prove to Ed that He was good.
Nate: One of the things that you mentioned in your story was that you didn't go to church as a child, but then you did begin going as an adult. You said you just kind of mindlessly assented, in a way, to whatever the pastor said. "Yeah, of course God's good, of course He's kind, of course He's love." And yet, there's all this turmoil going on inside of your heart. What was that like.
Ed: Yeah, well I definitely gave assent to the notion that God is good and kind and so forth. Believe it or not, I even gave a little sermon in church one Sunday on God's goodness. But I also lived with this very strong sense that nobody else really knew me or understood. Nobody else knew what I needed. Nobody else knew what was best for me. I could trust only myself. And so, I didn't realize it back then, but that perspective kind of automatically was pushing God out, putting Him on the margins of my life. I thought I trusted Him, but in practice I really didn't. But because I said I trusted Him, I could blame Him for things that weren't going my way or weren't working out the way I wanted them too. Then in the larger view of things, I'd say I was essentially living a double life I was saying one thing and doing another. And that duplicity only increased over time. Especially when sexual sin gained a stronger foothold in my life.
Nate: Wow, what you were just saying: "I trust in God, He's good and He's kind, but no one else knows what I need, and no one cares for me like they should." It's like, wow, those are direct contradictions of what God tells us about Himself.
Ed: Yeah, it's true. It's hard to explain how you can actually live with that duplicity, but I did.
Nate: So, praise God, because obviously He dealt very kindly with you on those misconceptions about who He was. I want to ask you, what was the turning point where it became, not intellectual assent and duplicity inside, but now a real genuine belief and trust that He is who He says He is.
Ed: When I look back over my life, I have to give God credit for being so patient and so gentle with me. Because the change didn't really take place until I was in my late thirties and ended up at Pure Life Ministries. Even though I was about to graduate from a rather conservative, orthodox seminary with excellent grades, I also understood that something was off. God is omnipotent, that's the theological statement of truth. But in my life, it seemed that He was impotent. He'd been unable to protect me. Unable to bring me lasting happiness that I expected, and worst of all, He'd been unable to deliver me from the bondage of sexual sin. Then I arrived at Pure Life Ministries. And coming here was really the last step before I was going to throw in the towel on life. I thought, "If God doesn't come through with me here at Pure Life, then I'm done with everything. Marriage, Christianity, life, just everything.
So early on when I was here as a student in the residential program—and I give the Lord credit more than me, when I say it this way—I made a conscious decision to set aside everything I thought I knew about God. Whatever I knew before had only left me ultimately in misery and despair, and with no victory over sin in my life. I had none of the love, joy, peace, or any other of the fruits of the Spirit in my life. So, I recognize that there was this vast gap between my experience and what the Bible portrayed. For the first time I decided that the problem just might be my experience. That I had to let go of that filter between me and God. I determined to read the Bible and let the Lord reveal Himself to me. I just determined, "Whatever I read, God, that's what I'm going to believe! That's who you are. You are who you say you are, not who I've imagined you to be."
There's this one particular morning when God really met me when I was reading His Word in my personal devotion time. I'd been taught when you come to certain things where the Bible's stating "God is good," or something like that, you pause and you pray, and you give thanks, and you worship Him in that moment. I was doing that, and I was just thanking Him for how good He was, and I sensed this little quiet voice in my heart. It was Him, and He said to me, "But you don't believe that." I knew it was Him, because there was such a sadness and a yearning in the words when I heard them in my heart. I instantly knew it was true. My whole life I had been proclaiming His goodness, but not really believe it. Never making it personal, like God is good to me. I repented in that very moment. I did what I was taught to do: when I'm wrong, I just acknowledge it. I prayed, "God I'm wrong, I repent. You are good, regardless of what I have experienced or thought or understood."
From there it's like His word really became more alive. I could really see that Romans 8:28 is true, He really does work all things out for good for those who love Him. Or like Joseph said in Genesis 50:20, that even what others mean for evil, the Lord means for good in our lives. Now God's goodness is one of those foundational truths that I hold onto. It gets tested at times in my life, I assure you. But there are times when everything can seem out of control or just hard, or painful. But I have this rock now that I stand on and cling to, that God is good! I may not be able to see it right now, or feel it right now, or prove it right now, but I know that He's good and eventually I'll get through this and I'll be able to see it clearly.
Nate: One of the ideas that this whole show is based on is something you haven’t said explicitly, but I'd like to point out, is that we must surrender. And that's what happened. I can hear that! You surrendered your opinions, your experiences, your ideas, your emotions, and now it was going to be God who was in control. Not things the other way around.
Ed: Absolutely, and it changed my life. In the way it needed to be changed. It started to get good at that point.
Nate: Wow. I want to broaden things out a little bit and talk now more about things that are difficult for us to understand about God that are outside of our own experience. Because there are things about what God does that are just difficult for us to understand. There are things that, in the Bible, it makes God at times seem like He's an angry tyrant. There are things in our world that seem like, there's just so much pointless suffering. Now obviously, I know we're not going to solve all these issues in one question.
Ed: Correct.
Nate: But I'm just wondering if in your own experience with suffering, you’ve seen God's goodness, and it’s helped you to see through these difficult issues?
Ed: Yes. For sure it has done that, Nate. I really like Psalm 119 verse 68, which says simply, "You are good, and you do good." The Psalmist is exalting God there. That's the simple truth we have to believe and hold onto. I've learned never to doubt God's goodness. My inability to see it or recognize it in a specific situation doesn't negate the fact that God is good and that He's actively doing good. That's why I like that verse, because it adds that little element to it, that God "does good." And I think it can be really helpful to keep that truth as the frame around our experiences of suffering.
It also helps to keep in mind that it isn't only humans that are suffering. God suffers too. Jesus is called a man of sorrows. He bears our griefs and carries our sorrows. He enters right into suffering and suffers alongside us, in other words. We're never alone in our suffering. But God also suffers in ways that we can't really comprehend. God experiences a great level rejection. To a high degree He is often misunderstood, gets blamed and is falsely accused. The level of despising and hatred that He has to deal with is far beyond anything that we humans ever experience. And God suffers it all without retaliating. He just remains kind. It says right in scripture, "He's kind even to the unthankful and the evil," (Luke 6:35). He just keeps offering mercy, and He's willing to forgive everyone who will repent.
And Nate if I could offer maybe one more insight about suffering and something that helps in the midst of it. It's kind of hard to explain, but I'll say it this way. We know from 1st John 4 that "God is love." And in Romans 5 we learn that God demonstrated His love for us by sending His Jesus to the Cross. Now, Jesus needed to die in order to serve as our perfect lamb, and be the sacrifice for our sins, but He didn't have to die on the cross just to accomplish that. The cross was chosen specifically because of the extreme suffering involved in dying on the cross. God wanted us to see His heart. His willingness to suffer the cruelest death that man could inflict on Him. That's what God wanted us to see.
What God has shown me over and over is that His love is most clearly revealed in suffering. And when we suffer as believers, we're actually able to better reveal Jesus to others than at any other time in our life. Our wounds that we have from suffering become the touch points for others to see and experience the love of God for themselves. And when people are able to praise Him, thank Him and trust Him in the midst of suffering, that's one of the most important distinctions I think there is between Christians and those who don't know the Lord.
Nate: Yes. As you were talking about that I was just reflecting on the fact that we're finite and God is infinite. As I listen to you saying these things, which are so otherworldly and profound, I'm just aware that even these things are just the fringes of His ways. They're just the basic outline of who He really is. We can do exactly what you said before, we can look just right in the face of things we don't understand, and we can say, "You are good and do good."
Ed: That's right. Yeah, I just love the fact that God is bigger than my understanding. Bigger than I'm able to comprehend. I don't want Him to be just a bigger, slightly better version of me. He's infinitely wiser and infinitely better, and because of that He's worthy of my trust.
