The Goodness of God

The goodness of God exceeds our greatest need for goodness. If we can dream of how good God might truly be, we must realize that His goodness exceeds even that - not only in quantity but also in kind. And then we must realize that is exactly what has come to us, what God has given us in Jesus.

How often do we come to God asking Him for something we know is obviously good but do so in a panic and with fear that God might withhold that good from us? We can hardly imagine anything better than the good we hold in our mind. We panic because we believe that if God does not grant this good thing to which we cling - even though we don't even have it in our possession - that we will die! or at least some part of us will die. Yet is the promise God has given to us in Christ that there is no good thing that he will withhold. Our problem is that we believe we know better than God what is best even though we do not have sufficient knowledge to know what is best let alone sufficient power to obtain it. And so we fret and fear and, basically, doubt that God wants to or can give us the good we seek.

Can we trust that God really is so good that he will not withhold any good thing from us? Can we trust that God is really so good that he will wait until the perfect moment to deliver that good to us? Can we trust in the goodness of God so that we can yield our most cherished dreams, our most carefully developed plans, and our highest expectations, even to the point of embracing disappointment and heartbreak, humiliation and suffering, even persecution and destitution knowing that God will deliver on his promise because God is good?

I ask you these questions but, more to the point, i ask myself these questions. I have failed miserably to give a positive reply so many times. I suspect you may have, also, at least to some degree. But the greatest goodness that we have from God is that if we will, in deep humility, trusting in God's goodness, go to him and admit our failure and his goodness to us, especially when have been anything but good, then we discover his goodness again for the first time. Then we can hear Jesus say to us, again, "I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more."

The goodness of God exceeds our greatest dreams and desire for goodness, for some-one to be good to us. God is good. God is love.