God is Good?

I was sitting at the table with some of the cooks from camp and one was telling us about her plans next week. She was going to go to some town and stay in a hotel, which she wasn't too excited about (due to the cost) when a friend suggested she borrow his RV and just stay in town. She was so excited by this plan she remarked, "God is good!"

Immediately something twitched inside me. God is good because you get to stay in an RV rather than pay for a hotel? My first thought was of all the people around the world who don't even have a home or who live in a shack. So according to her logic, God actually isn't good, because he gave you a nice place to stay for a week while leaving billions of others out in the cold.

What makes God good? How do we measure God's goodness?

I don't believe it's appropriate to say God is good, because we just got what we wanted. It only reinforces the mindset that God is like Santa Claus.

I believe that God is good, and that he does give us good things. However, sometimes we need to suffer, so God gives us pain. Sometimes the best thing for us is to take something away. And sometimes God just allows evil and good things to happen...