Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
~ Psalms 136:1 (NKJV)
The Hebrew word ṭôb (or tov) from the above passage means "good" in the very broadest sense of the word. Tôb is beautiful, righteous, kind, loving, wise, valuable, glad, strong, gracious, joyful, well-pleasing, profitable, precious.
We hear that God is good. We sing it. We accept it.
And then we suspect otherwise.
Like the child who is must learn the disciplines of life with correction and sometimes thinks the whole affair unpleasant, we catch ourselves thinking that maybe God isn't really good.
He seems mad at us when we don't deserve it. We see His discipline as too harsh. We judge that He isn't fair with us, and it isn't right for Him to not explain things we think we have a right to know. We'd bet that He's not as forgiving as He says and is just waiting for us to mess up so He can get back at us for all the other stuff. We may think He's simply toying with us, that He's mean and ugly. (Maybe He's not good?)
The Bible is filled with countless testimonies from real people who endured all that we endure—and worse. They saw God's goodness at work and tell us to remember ~
God is good.
If we are smarting from our Father's discipline or having a tantrum because we didn't get our way, perhaps we simply need to read some of those testimonies and then go talk to our Father. If we are willing to get as close to Him as we know how and listen to Him, He has loving words of comfort for us—good words.
Our Father in Heaven, You are good above all goodness we know. You are all good, only good, all the time. Please increase our faith to believe that even when we're too small to comprehend Your goodness.
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Copyright 2011, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
When I read the book "The Shack" even though it was not strictly scriptural I got a new feeling for how good God really is and at times found myself weeping as His love was expressed. We have a saying here in NC "God is good all the time, All the time God is good". Have an awesome tuesday.
ReplyDeleteOdie ~
ReplyDeleteGood saying for ANY place. I know we believe it when we say it. But I think every time we are brought to tears with new realization of His goodness, we mean those words on a deeper AND higher level.
Praise God for His goodness. this is denise
ReplyDeleteDenise ~
ReplyDeleteMay we never fail to praise His goodness, so that we will believe it all the more, and in our praise, comprehend His goodness all the more.