God is Good

“But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.”
Psalm 13:5-6 NLT

Some words to describe God appear in these last two verses of Psalm 13. Lover, Rescuer, and the declaration that God is good. In response, the Psalmist declares his trust, rejoicing and singing. A lovely picture of the relationship between David and his Lord, and one we would do well to emulate. What is our relationship with God like? Can we testify about His unfailing love or His goodness? Has God rescued us from some crisis or other in our lives? Do we go about our days singing our praises to the One who is good? Or do we struggle to even pray some mornings and start the days quickly drawn into a maelstrom of busy-ness and stress, God soon pushed to the rear of our thoughts if He even appeared in the first place? But it is because of God and all that He is to us, that means we can have a different perspective powering our lives. 

We pilgrims have found the sweet spot that somehow reconciles living in two kingdoms. In the one, we enjoy a relationship with God, where we can converse with Him, sing to Him, and enjoy His presence, full of His love and goodness. In the other, we find ourselves in a secular world that doesn’t know God and instead worships a system underpinned by sin and evil. A “what’s in it for me” society out of sync with God’s plan. I honestly don’t know how Godless and unbelieving people can ever survive in the societies in which they live. The only “goodness” they experience, if at all, is a shrivelled caricature of the goodness that can only be found through a relationship with God. And we pilgrims have an opportunity to bring God’s kingdom into the world around us, salt and light in a world of darkness, a world desperate for illumination and relief to people just as their Creator intended. 

But we know that God is good. There is nothing bad about God at all. His holiness and purity ensure that His goodness is also pure and holy. I love how Psalm 23 concludes, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”. God’s goodness is always there for us, pursuing us through the otherwise dark days that lack anything good about them. We go through life with all of God’s resources empowering us, the Holy Spirit within us, the certainty of God’s love and goodness there within reach, refreshing our otherwise thirsty souls.

We can’t, of course, retain the benefits of God’s goodness all to ourselves. Paul wrote, “Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith” (Galatians 6:10). We are dispensers of God’s goodness to those around us. How can the lost folk in our communities ever know that God is good unless they experience His goodness for themselves? We are shining lights illuminating the world around us, but what good is it if we hide our lights “under a bushel”, thus appearing just as dark as everyone else? 

David couldn’t hold in His response to God, and because of His goodness, David sang. Songs of praises and worship. Songs of thanks. Songs that describe all that God had done for him. What songs are we singing today? But no matter how or what we sing to God, we can be assured that angels are joining in, swelling the songs of praise to our wonderful and gracious God. Sometimes we can even hear the refrain in the Heavens – if we listen. 

Dear Heavenly Father. Sometimes we do hear the song of angels worshipping You before Your throne. We pray that we have the opportunity to join in the Heavenly anthems, adding our worship, that is rightfully Yours to receive, and tuning our spiritual ears to hear the Heavenly choir. Amen.