Hey, friends! Today I get to share over at Joyful Life Magazine’s blog! You can head over there to read the whole thing or read on for a teaser…
In the months before we all turned twenty-one, I watched my friend (now husband) lose his best friend to a cancer he’d battled for years. I observed all the ways my husband cared for his friend’s physical needs as he came to the end of life. I noticed how he attended to his friend’s family and young bride. And when our friend died, I saw that, though my husband grieved, he was not destroyed. I remember asking him why. In the years since, I’ve never forgotten his answer to me: “I decided early on that God is good.”
It’s easy to look around, see evil and sadness and pain, and doubt God’s goodness in this world. But when His goodness becomes bedrock, I’m able to start seeing it despite and even within that same evil, sadness, and pain. His goodness gives me reason to hope; if I know He has been good and is good, I can believe He will continue to be good, no matter how circumstances appear. Making His goodness non-negotiable in my own mind, filtering everything through the truth that ‘God is good,’ has changed my life.
Our Good God
The God we serve is infinitely good. Christ said, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). We tend to think of His goodness and love as it relates to us, but those attributes aren’t limited to the tiny portion of eternity “after creation.” It’s who He IS, even before the foundation of the world.
While God’s goodness is preexistent, it’s also abundantly evident throughout human history, from the beginning of creation to the rescue and restoration that was promised. He created darkness and light, sun and moon, land and sea, plants, animals, and people, and declared them good (Genesis 1). Yet when our first parents sinned—tainting the goodness He created in us—He had a rescue plan, and it gave Adam and Eve hope for the restoration to come, even as He was sending them away from His presence in the garden (Genesis 3:15).
Read the rest at Joyful Life Magazine’s blog!
This post is part of my series, 31 days of speaking the truth. You can find the whole list of them here on the first post of the series.
grace enough 