“God gives God. He withholds no good thing
from you. And the good things in life are not so much health, but holiness; not
so much riches in this world, but relationship with God; not so much our plans,
but His presence—and He withholds no good thing from us because the greatest
things aren’t ever things. He doesn’t withhold Jesus from you. Christ is your
good, and He is ALL yours, and this always your miracle. No matter the bareness
you feel, you can always have as much Jesus as you want.” –Ann Voskamp
This quote hit
home so hard for me today, so that I find myself questioning my heart, “Do I amidst my current circumstances,
believe God to be good?” I think this is a question we all need to stop
every so often to ask ourselves. A false foundation can be laid in believing
that we must have an experiential feeling, where everything in our life is
lining up for our benefit, to know that God is good. This could only lead us to
be people who are experiential adventure seekers, instead of people seeking
after the face of God. Oswald Chambers writes a warning of this in his book “My Utmost for His Highest”, “My experience is not what makes redemption
real—redemption is reality. The Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my
experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my
personal experiences I am left with something not produced by redemption. Is
any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over
you, and pay no attention to any other experience over which He is not Lord. Be
relentlessly hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about
experiences you have had. Faith based on experiences is not faith; faith based
on God’s revealed truth is the only faith there is.”
The reality is
that God is good. And He is all I need! When my view of Him becomes skewed I
need to come back to the truth of who He is. His goodness is not based off of
how He blesses me. God is not good because of the situations He places me in;
God is not good because of the people He brings into my life; God is not good
because of how I feel; God is not good because of how I look; God is not good
when I have money; God is not good when I have a husband; God is not good when
my family is settled and taken care of; God is not good because of my
excellence; GOD IS GOOD BECAUSE GOD IS GOD! “I
will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.” Psalm 54:6
When I am lacking
what I think will make my life better or more fulfilled that does not mean that
God is not good. He is my heavenly Father who loves to give good gifts to His
beloved children! Matthew 7:9-11 says,
“Which of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he
asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in
heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
And Psalm 84:11-12 says, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the
LORD bestows favor [grace] and honor. No
good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in
you!”
Knowing this is
who God is when things seem especially hard and it feels like I am facing a
season of life like Job--who had everything taken away from him, I need to step
back and recall the faithfulness of God in my every moment, because again, His
goodness towards me is not based off of my circumstances. It’s time to
consider, in the doubts and storms, that “YES,
the LORD will give what is good!” (Psalm 85:12) and “Those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.” (Psalm 34:10) Time to
get my eyes off of my circumstances and back to Jesus Christ and His
righteousness. Can I say like Job, “The
LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job
1:21)? And like Job can it be said
of me, “In all this Job did not sin or
charge God with wrong” (Job 1:22)? What if when trials and tribulations
come my way can I declare like Habakkuk, “Though
the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the
olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and
there be no herd in the stalls, yet I
will rejoice in the Jehovah; I will take joy in Elohim of my salvation. Elohim,
Adonai, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer’s; He makes me tread the
high places.” (Habakkuk 3:17-19) Habakkuk just declared how terrible is
life prospects were looking, and yet he could finish by saying he would take
joy in God?! What are we missing today that keeps us from declaring such things
as Habakkuk? I’ve been challenged to consider that it is quite possibly the
absence of thankfulness in our lives and hearts which creates the difference
between people like Job and Habakkuk to people like you and I.
