God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. I’ve heard that so many times. But how many times do I really stop to let it sink in? Do I really believe God is good? Let alone, do I really believe He’s good all the time?
Something God has revealed to me over and over again is that I need to trust Him more. Not just trust Him with my burdens or trust in His ability to save people from their sins, but to trust Him because He is inherently good.
This first started about a month or so ago. I was sitting on my porch praying. At the time I was struggling with feeling like I wasn’t serving God enough. I felt like God was pressuring me to evangelize more, and every opportunity I passed up to share the gospel with someone, I just felt overwhelming guilty about it. I felt as if wasn’t measuring up to some lofty quota God had set for me to pray with x number of people a day. And it was beginning to stress me out.
As I was praying that day, suddenly God moved me to go through the Bible to see what a true father is. Not what it says about Him as a Heavenly Father, but just to look at what His standards for fathers on earth are. It was almost like I felt Him saying, “Ok. Take a look at what I ask of fathers on earth, and understand that my standard for human fathers is a reflection of my role as the Heavenly Father.”
So I opened up my Bible. And the first thing I came across was “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21).
That in itself was enough to catch me off guard. God showed me straight up – I’m not provoking you. So I prayed that He would take up my burden of trying to please Him through my works, and He took it away. And I’m still free of that burden today. Simple enough.
Now, more recently, God again revealed that I don’t always consider Him to be a good God. Specifically, I’ve been praying for someone’s salvation recently, and really crying out to God for them. But when I would pray, I would find myself hesitant about praying that God’s will be done. Why? Because I was scared that His will wouldn’t work out to be what I wanted.
Now, let me say, that it sounds quite foolish when I type it out, because the reality is, God’s will always happens anyway. But the thing that God really convicted me of, was my lack of trust that His will is good. Good all the time. Not just sometimes. Not just when I don’t really care what happens anyway. Not just when I am actually excited to see what God’s gonna do. But all the time. Even when I’m nervous about it. Romans 8:28 is legit today and forever.
So, long story short, God has really birthed a new desire in me to 1) trust Him and 2) recognize that He is good. The two really go hand in hand, I guess. But I’ve found that most of my Christian walk, I’ve spent time trying to master #1 without believing #2. Seems to me like they’re probably easier to take on together…
Knowledge of God’s characteristics should be enough ground to change our perspective on certain situations. God is good. Remember that when you’re facing a challenge, because regardless of how you feel or even what you believe, God remains the same.
And a final note on fathership. God really is a good father. But I think that can be difficult for us to understand, especially since we’re used to dealing with our imperfect earthly fathers. Now, a lot of fathers in our society are missing the mark on what it means to head a household and father their children. But even if all the fathers here on earth tried their best to be good for their children, they’d still fall short in some regard. Simply put, fathers are humans too. But, thankfully, God is different. Just check the Bible for the standards He has for human fathers. These standards are a reflection of His nature as our eternal Father. God is perfect and righteous and always knows what is best for you. He doesn’t want to knock you down or take you out. He made you with a purpose and wants to encourage you to be all that He created you to be. If all of this seems completely bizarre and unfathomable to you, then I’d agree. It’s absolutely ridiculous that we have such an amazing Father. He’s just that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment