The Goodness of God

Spring is well on its way, at least here in southeast Texas. The first sign is our annual coating of pine pollen, which gives our world a yellow glow. But the flowers and trees are also beginning to bloom - Carolina jasmine, redbud and ornamental pear trees, and even the first bluebonnets are emerging, making good on their annual promise of new birth and new growth. What a miracle the burst of new life is after a long winter of bare branches and fruitlessness! 

I'd love to share with you something I wrote over 20 years ago, as a part of a little project I worked on about the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians chapter 5. It is always fun for me to look back and "hear" what almost-30 year old me was thinking about. I was in the thick of our young marriage, motherhood, and ministry years, and was writing from a just-post 9/11 perspective.

Looking back, that tragic event served as the cracked-open doorway for my own understanding that this world is broken. Before that event, I was like so many people who live their entire lives being surprised by one terrible thing happening after another, convinced that each one is an anomaly. The truth is that the terrible things are to be expected; rather, it is the lovely and beautiful things in life that are the real surprise, and each one should be treasured. 

So how beautiful are the characteristics of God, that He so freely shares with us through His Spirit! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; all of these are the antithesis of our cruel and selfish ways. Not long ago, when the world was smaller and our culture was still influenced by a biblical worldview, it was easier to believe that all people were naturally gifted with these same lovely characteristics, but it’s not so easy to think that any more. The whole world is connected and our selfish human nature is on display for all to see like never before thanks to social media, which is like a mirror that shows what is really in the hearts of people. Life in the Spirit is truly countercultural, and the world is desperate for more of each of these lovely traits in action. Our lives can bless and encourage just like the spring blooms, when we keep in step with the Spirit. 

Today, let's go back to 2002, and revisit some thoughts about God's goodness...

Psalm 34:1-10 (NIV)
I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips.  My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.  Glorify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together.  I sought the Lord, and He answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.  Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. The poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

Each of the fruit of the Spirit is a representation of one of the qualities of God’s character.  Anyone who has met the Lord and has experienced salvation knows that the goodness of God is like nothing else in the world.  I will never forget the way my whole outlook was changed when Jesus became my Savior and Lord.  Not everyone actually feels despairing or suicidal outside of a relationship with Christ, but so many have at least felt the hopelessness and lack of purpose that exists outside of a relationship with Jesus, and that was my experience.
    
When Jesus comes into a heart, He rights all of the wrongs, and makes things come into order. When I gave my heart to Jesus, I felt complete for the first time.  Jesus brings satisfaction, wholeness, peace, and purpose:  He is good.  Nothing about me changed on the outside.  I still appeared to be the same person.  But on the inside, everything was changed, and I could feel it.  To quote a great old hymn, “My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but in whole, was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul!”  Before salvation we are weighed down by the burden of our sinful nature.  After the cross we are free through the shed blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  He is good.

As we are made new creatures in Christ, we take on His righteousness and His character.  Our sinful nature is put to death and we begin to walk in step with the Spirit.  We experience and feel the goodness of God, and we are able to pass on His goodness to others. 

How can one describe goodness?  I think the psalmist understood what it meant as he wrote Psalm 34.  God, in His goodness, hears and answers our cries.  He delivers us from fears and anxiety.  He takes away our shame.  He saves us from our troubles.  He delivers us. In essence, He takes all of the ugliness from our fallen nature and replaces it with what is right, unbroken, and unblemished:  with goodness. 

The world is ugly and broken.  If you turn on the news tonight you will see dozens of images testifying to the sad state of this world.  Wars, terrorism, diseases, famine, domestic violence, murder, abandonment, addiction, abuse, hedonism – the list of woes is long and painful.  This world is broken. It is wrong and it is upside down.  Jesus alone can set us aright and bring light and goodness into our lives.  

As followers of Christ, as bearers of the fruit of His Spirit, it is our duty to bring His goodness – or one could also call it His wholeness and reality – to a broken world.  Before experiencing Christ, we all do things just because that is what everyone else is doing, without really thinking about it.  Young people drink alcohol, experiment with drugs, act rebellious, and become promiscuous because that is what the world says they should do.  Married couples fight, become adulterous, and divorce because that is what the world says they should do.  Children whine, fight, act rebellious and greedy because no one ever challenges them to anything different or better. The acts of the sinful nature are ugly.    

Since we have experienced the goodness of the Lord, it is our responsibility to share it with the people around us.  We have experienced the liberty and sweet freedom that comes from living within the restraints of Christianity.  The goodness of God is in His reality – in His holiness and purity.  It’s like tasting something delicious for the first time.  When my baby had her first taste of ice cream, her eyes lit up and she opened her mouth for more.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”
    
I will never forget the actual relief that I felt when I became a Christian and realized that there really was a right and wrong, and that it really did matter how I lived my life.  The choices I had been making had been leaving me empty and despondent – my life was not going anywhere.  After I met Jesus and began doing things to please Him, I felt terrific!  It would be wrong for me to think that I am the only person in the world who would feel that way about the changes that Jesus brought to my behavior.  It would be wrong for me to believe that I shouldn’t share the goodness of God because people might find His commandments restrictive or outdated.  I had never felt more real or alive than I have since I met Jesus, and the same will be true for so many others.
    
Most people have such a misconception of Jesus and of Christianity in general.  It is not just a list of do’s and don’ts.  It is a living, growing relationship with our Creator and Savior.  It is finally becoming the person He created us to be.  In His goodness He brings freedom where we were in bondage.  He brings order where we lived in chaos.  He brings reality when we were trapped in deception.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit we can share this goodness with the people around us.  I will never stop being grateful for my parents for raising me in a Christian home, or for the woman who shared God’s goodness with me in college, and who challenged me to surrender my life to Him, And there are many people in your life today that would be ecstatic to hear of His goodness through you!

It is not difficult.  We just need to open up our lives and share the good news.  It is always true that people will be turned off by Christians who speak angrily, judgmentally, or condescendingly.  However, it is also true that people respond to kindness.  If we take the time to make an investment in someone’s life, we can earn the right to speak the truth to that person in love. In my own experience, my friend in college did not mock my very ungodly behavior choices or tell me that I was going to hell to burn forever.  She invited me into her home week after week and shared her life with me.  She listened to me, prayed for me, and cooked for me!  She was a friend to me, and I grew to love and trust her. I saw her life and could see the obvious difference between the two of us.  The peace and contentment she displayed were something that I wanted; I wanted to be like her.  Soon, when I was presented with the choice of salvation, I was ready.  I had seen the goodness of God displayed in her life, and wanted that in my own life.
    
​Since then, I have seen the same story unfold in countless lives!  The goodness of God is so attractive and powerful.  The Holy Spirit will develop this fruit in our lives when we ask Him, and many people will “taste and see that the Lord is good!”

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Back to 2024…

With a couple more decades of life lived, I would just add that our wills must be exercised in allowing God’s goodness to grow in and flow through our lives. He has done all the heavy lifting to save us, and His Spirit is always at work in conforming us into the image of Christ. We must cooperate with this work, and be so mindful of each day’s choices. The world is screaming for us all to be angry and vengeful, but God is full of mercy and grace, and asks us to be His representatives to the people around us. How amazing it is to have the opportunity each day to choose to bring God’s goodness everywhere we go!

And with that, full disclosure - I edited out so many exclamation points, as twenty-something me used them a bit too liberally. But I pray that these thoughts will stay with you this week, and that the wonderful goodness of God will shine through you wherever you go and upon whomever the Lord leads you towards. May your life be an encouragement and blessing to many -