On Tuesday evening a tornado swept through Mineral Wells, where one of my dearest friends, Billy Wilson, ministers the gospel. Their home took the hit—broken windows, a damaged pickup, a fence laid flat, a yard scattered with debris. Others nearby fared worse. Roofs gone.
Lives upended. And it raises a question that doesn’t stay in Texas.
Is God only good when the storm skips my house but lands on yours?
Is gratitude only honest if it forgets the suffering of others?
Can I thank God for a warm cup of coffee while someone else sifts through rubble?
We feel the tension because we know something is wrong with an easy answer. A God whose goodness depends on my circumstances is too small to worship. If his goodness rises and falls with my comfort, then he is not good—he is useful. Scripture presses us deeper. “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:9). Not some. All. Jesus says the Father “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). That means two things sit side by side in this world: real blessing and real suffering. The same sky gives sunshine and storm.
So what do we do? We refuse the lie that gratitude and grief cannot share the same heart. The Christian life has always held them together. We give thanks for daily bread, and we pray, “Lord, have mercy.” We rejoice with those who rejoice, and we weep with those who weep.
Gratitude does not require amnesia. It requires vision. It sees every good gift—coffee, shelter, breath itself—as undeserved mercy. And it sees every neighbor’s suffering as a summons, not a statistic. Not someone else’s problem, but our calling. God’s goodness is not proven by the absence of storms. It is revealed in his presence within them—and in the kind of people he is forming us to be. People who do not turn away. People who do not harden. People who, having received mercy, become its instruments.
So drink your coffee. Give thanks. And then ask God to make you part of the answer for
someone still standing in the debris.
Maranatha,
Jordy
