When I was training for a marathon, I would fill my pockets with orange slices in Ziploc bags. As weariness snuck up, one or two slices popped in my mouth would push it back and give me strength to press on another few kilometers. God's words and His encouragement sometimes come in bite-sized slices -impressions, experiences, encounters - and are just enough to push weariness back and keep us pressing on a little further...

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Great and Mighty Goodness of God


God is good.

In every circumstance.
In every circumstance.
Always.
All the time.

It’s true.

Our circumstances neither indicate nor dictate the goodness of God.  His goodness is independent of the comedies and tragedies that ebb along the edges of our lives.  He is good on good days and He is good on bad days.  He is good when we are happy and good when we are sad.  He is good when we are satisfied or left wanting, good when we are overwhelmed by sorrow or joy, by abundance or by need.  No matter what is or is not, no matter what we have or have not, no matter what we are or are not, God is good.

His goodness is not challenged when comfort is compromised.  It is not reduced when wind and fire and water fail in their charge, swiftly turning treasonous and cruel against the humanity they were created to sustain. The breadth of His goodness spans need, the length of it spreads across affliction, the height of it eclipses the blinding numbing burn of unexpected trouble.  Nothing can diminish His goodness, neither heat nor cold, neither sorrow nor pain, neither presence of possessions nor loss of all we call our own.

The slivers of pleasurable experiences we have known and attributed to the goodness of God – sweet laughter with well-loved friends, gilded hues of evening on grass and trees and sky, berries full of a flavor so rich no tongue could describe – all these and more are nothing but barely heard whispers of the symphony that is His splendid benevolence.

God is good.

His goodness is known in every galaxy, every solar system.  If stars have souls, they, the ones who sang in the coming of creation, blaze with praise unceasing.  All matter known and unknown, dark and light, quantum and classical is imbued with His magnificence.  The universe waits in expectation for the tiny puny cry of creatures on the planet inhabited, straining to hear the words that set it spinning with glory.  “God is good”, we muster, through tears of joy or of sorrow, sometimes choking, sometimes shouting: “God is good.”  The universe goes wild.

God is good.
God is good.
God is good.

Nothing can change it.  Nothing can steal it.  Nothing can reinterpret, redefine, or rearrange it.  God’s goodness is as present on the battlefield as it is at the peace table.  It dwells in the first breaths of life and in the last breath before death, in health and in crippling, pain-gripped disease.  It is sewn into us, pulsing through us like blood, breathing in and out of us like air, whether we know it, see it, acknowledge it or not.  Just as He is the I AM, God’s goodness IS.

And so I will say it, again and again, whether I understand the swirling winds that whip through my life or not.  I cannot earn God’s goodness nor strive to see it grow – how can the infinite increase?  What could press the endless into deeper corners of eternity?  We tiny puny creatures are made merely to recognize it, to enjoy it and to speak it, again and again, no matter the trouble that surrounds, so that the universe echoes with glory unrestrained.

God is good.
God is good. 
God is good.

 Nothing else is truer.
 “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;    
His love endures forever.
Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord
    
or fully declare His praise?”
-Psalm 106:1-2

1 comment:

  1. I shared this post two years ago and it came up on my feed today! Such a perfect time indeed. Thank you for trusting God with your life and your writing. I love you, dear friend!
    Steph

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