God Is Good

It was St. Dominic's Roman Catholic Church. It was High Mass and the priest was singing the Mass in Latin but I was still too young to know what Latin was. I was earnestly in love with church. The candles, the bells, the saints, the cross, the green embroidered vestments, the host...I was smitten. I was five and I had already taken sides.

That service was the day I "Got God" for the first time. I understood Him. At some point during the service I became aware of His God-ness. I knew He was real and wonderful. I knew God was good. It was a sentinel event. I began to know a lot of things after that but the God-is-good revelation was the foundation supporting everything that came after. It was something He told me about Himself and I listened.

Every day of Creation God paused to pronounce that day's work to be good. The light was good, the fish good, animals good, man good. The tragedy of the Garden story is that the sin of man blinded us all to that goodness. Man looked at the goodness of the Garden but doubted the goodness of the Gardner. It was anti-truth then and it still is.

His goodness is as unfailing as His love. Sometimes only a child heart can see it, trusting it to be so in that unconscious way children have about such things. Doors wide open, the Almighty comes. No one has taken up arms against Him...yet. I would do that later and have to discover Him all over again. Christ at the heart of it.

The truth is that the defect was in there all along but as a pastor shared tonight in a Bible study, "foreknown is foreloved" and God had a plan for my knowing Him long before day one of Creation. He had a plan for me to know Him as He is, a God who is good. Who is as good as His word. Who remains good even when our lives are coming apart. Who sent us word of His steadfast love in the person of His Son, Jesus.

When my son was in Iraq and returned in one piece, I found myself telling people, as often as they themselves reminded me, "God is good." One day I was confronted with the realization that God would remain good even if John David had perished.

God was just as good when my son was sent back to war a second time because He does not change to conform to our circumstance. He is what He is and He is a God of Goodness and Truth who loves us unflinchingly. That is some good news and it is a realization that always takes me back to the first time His goodness marked my life.

There is a scripture that has become a daily prayer. It is a gift. It is my profession of faith in my Father's trustworthy goodness. I wrote it on a rock after I wrote it on my heart.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love for I have put my trust in you. Psalm 143:8 NIV

May that word come to your mind when the sun comes up tomorrow...or even if it doesn't.