I saw a recent Substack article where the writer questioned if God had abandoned 2025, left it for ruin. Immediately, I paused and thought, Has it been that bad?
Then my brain recalled large-scale catastrophes that have impacted our world: school shootings, political assassinations, devastating hurricanes, and religious genocides. From there, it was only natural to consider the personal hardships in my life, so many things fractured, broken, and lost—many of these things my fault and/or beyond repair.
Is it any wonder that anyone would question where the good in 2025 went?
God Meets Us in Our Questions
As much as our self-righteousness might convince us that we would never question God’s presence and His purpose for times of habitual disappointment and heaviness, I’ve discovered that our questioning is our seeking. It’s our desperation for an understanding. It’s a sign, even if a messy one, that we care. That we want to believe there’s more to God and His goodness than we can see and comprehend when surrounded by ashes.
Thus, there is a difference in spiritual desperation, no matter how sullied by our anger or confusion, and spiritual indifference. The outbursts, questions, and fuming are a sign that the soul is alive, and I hope you find encouragement in that truth, especially when recalling heroes of the faith:
Consider Elisha, who was on the run from the evil Jezebel. He was so sure God had abandoned him that he begged for death: “...while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors’” (1 Kings 19:4, NIV).
Gideon, one of the most notable, victorious warriors of the Old Testament, hears directly from God but still challenges what he’s hearing: “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.’ And Gideon said to him, ‘Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian” (Judges 6:12-13, ESV)
Then, of course, there is Thomas, the disciple who walked and talked with Jesus for three years but will forever be known as the doubter of His Savior’s resurrection: “Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe’” (John 20:24-25, NIV).
Humility Opens Our Eyes to the Goodness We Often Miss
As I encourage you to pursue the nature of God, I want to caution you to cling to hope and faith as you question and wrestle. Cynicism and bitterness too easily take root in human hearts, leaving us with only a pessimistic distrust in anything good. And what good does that do anyone?
Doubt turns into cynicism and bitterness when we allow one nasty little sin to creep inside our hearts: pride. We believe we know what’s best, what’s just, what someone else meant, what we would’ve done, etc. When we try trading God’s true ability to know and understand all things for our faulty omniscience. What we can’t rationalize must not be true.
I’ve found myself struggling with this before, but one small trick has taught me to tame this prideful beast. It’s simple, almost bitterly funny, but it puts me in my place quickly. I simply recall the day’s events, the simplest ones, that I had no control over. I ask myself basic questions about these events, which I clearly couldn’t predict. In my day-to-day life, this often looks like:
Did you know that your toddler would shove another child at the playground?
Did you have any clue that you were going to spill that drink all over your lap when you skirted out of the parking lot?
Did you expect to lose your temper when your husband kindly asked if he could play a round of golf?
Did you know you would forget to text that one friend back who really needs your presence?
When we become addicted to the answers for the sake of satisfying our egos rather than looking to our ultimate Solution for wisdom for today, we enter dangerous territory. We forget just how finite we are, how limited we are, how unable we are to predict the day’s events, let alone how irrational we might act when presented with an unwelcome situation. It becomes about us and our present state. And when hope and answers and joy are placed in the wobbly hands of sinners in a fallen world, it will only be natural that goodness seems gone.
Goodness Is Always Within Reach
In short, the goodness didn’t go anywhere. It’s not hiding. It’s not retreating. It’s simply buried by our unwillingness to see and cultivate it. Our pride and self-centeredness have simply made our perception limited by what we understand and what we want life’s answers to be.
Meanwhile, despite our destructive patterns, Psalm 145:9 (NIV) says, “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.” We are cradled by the God of everything who doesn’t ask us to know and understand everything but to simply trust His character, which is, indeed, goodness. We are asked to believe the most basic theological truth that God is omnipresent, and since He is the creator, sustainer, and very essence of goodness, goodness is omnipresent, accessible through His Holy Spirit for all who are willing.
Goodness Is Still Here
In my 30+ years of life, I’ve discovered that my love only extends as far as my trust. The two are indefinitely linked. And I’m not sure you can fully love someone without trusting them, without placing your heart, emotions, frailty, and unforeseen future in their hands. So why would we expect our love towards God to be any different? Why would we not trust that His love doesn’t need our perception of goodness to still be good and undeniably great? We can’t and won’t ever love like Him, which is why He is God, and we are not.
Thus, I’ve learned that despite my doubts and questions, and even the cynicism and bitterness that try to root in my heart, goodness remains readily available, and I have the honor and joy to sacrifice my self-centeredness to cultivate that goodness, if only I allow my preconceived notions and limited understanding to get out of the way.
As you enter the new year, remember, friend:
God hasn’t abandoned us.
Love hasn't left.
Goodness isn’t gone.
We have simply abandoned the idea that love asks that we trust in the goodness we can’t always see and dares us to give goodness the feet to walk roads we can’t predict or control.
What an honor to live in such a wild way, leaning into God and allowing all other circumstances to be what they are.
But on hard days when it feels like less of an honor and more like misery (I’ll be honest), I find myself humming the words to “He’ll Pilot Me,” an old Southern Gospel Hymn by Charles T. Bailey. I pray these words lift your spirits, too:
By His hand, He’ll pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea
When my blinded eyes can’t see
Cannot see the way, the way
Come what may, let come what may
On life’s dark and stormy sea
My dear Lord, blessed Lord
He will pilot, pilot me
Happy New Year! God Bless.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Xsandra
