In (Psalm 145:17) David declares that God is righteous in all his ways and merciful in all that he does. This echoes the song of Moses, when he says of God the Rock, that "the Lord is your mighty defender, perfect and just in all his ways; your God is faithful and true; he does what is right and fair." (Deuteronomy 32:4).
When I am honest with myself, I have to admit that I cannot always see that God is fair and kind in everything that he does. Things happen – things that God allows – that surely do not line up with my definition of fair and kind. And yet John proclaims without hesitation that in God there is no darkness at all. No darkness. Not even a little bit.
God is pure light, pure truth, pure goodness, pure moral perfection, pure love. He cannot lie, he cannot deny himself, he cannot be unfaithful. At the moment when I question whether a good God would really allow X to happen, I have begun to deny God's own revelation of his character in the Bible. In a very real sense I have set myself above God and made myself his judge.
I may have a hard day or a hard year. The news may be filled with evil things that happen all around. Events may come that I will never be able to explain, never be able to see any redeeming good in them. And yet this solid truth remains: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him. He is never guilty, he is never to blame. And even if he is responsible for something – for doing it or for allowing it to happen – that something must be seen in the light of his absolute goodness.