When my father-in-law preaches he will make the proclamation, “God is good”, and the congregation will reply, “All the time”, he will say, “All the time”, and they reply, “God is good”. I tease my wife that I disagree with this statement. God is not good, God is beyond good. Using good to describe God, is like calling the Grand Canyon, the Large Ravine; it does not accurately describe what you are talking about. It would be better to say “God is great” or better yet “God is Greatest”. She usually groans and rolls her eyes (as are, I imagine, others who read this) at my semantics.

This dialogue with my wife is mostly tongue in cheek. It would be pretty silly to really make a big deal about it being said this way, especially when it is not as if the opposite were true and God is bad.

It does, however, seem we often live like God is just good. God, our loving father whose lap we can crawl into and rest. When I think of God this way, He is safe and nice. But God is not these things. Following God is not safe; He may call me places where I am harmed and even killed. And if this is true then I cannot say He is nice. He is more than these things. God is powerful; his power extends to my every need. There is nothing I face that God has not already prepared me to face.

Thinking of God as good gives me the freedom to expect Him to do things my way. Someone “good” is going to meet my expectations, they will perform in a way I find acceptable. But if One is The Greatest then whatever He does is right even if I cannot see how it is “good” for me. The actions of the One who is Greatest are paramount, it does not matter what I would have done.

This Good vs. Greatest mindset hit home for me recently while getting our vehicles inspected and registered in Texas. In order for a vehicle to be registered it must pass an emission test. In Texas, if the engine light is on then your vehicle will not pass even if the reason is not emissions related. The engine light is on in my 1998 Buick. My engine light is on because “transmission components are slipping” so in order to pass the “emission” test, I have to repair the transmission. I was frustrated to learn that the already expensive process for registering my vehicle had just ballooned another $1200. I was upset because I did not want to put more money into this car for a while (I just spent $700 to fix the AC in preparation of a Texas summer). I was also frustrated because the money we needed for this repair is going to have to come out of money we were saving for a “family size” vehicle in the future. If I had a “Good” God then I would not have had to make any repairs; the engine light would have simply turned off when I prayed for it to (which I did, several times). But, I have the Greatest God, who provided us with the money we would need to make the repairs even if it is not how we had hoped to use that money.

I want a “Good” God who will do the things I want, my way. But I have (and need) the Greatest God who will do “immeasurably more than all [I] we ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20). This God provided the resources to pay for this car repair, in the process reminding me that God is Greatest, All the time.