God's Goodness…

Talking to a refugee who just received an answer to prayer, I said, “God is good” and he replied, “All the time.” No matter what the circumstances, no matter if we like what is happening, no matter if we are comfortable, God is good all the time.

Charnock’s section on God's goodness is long and rich. He lays out his reasoning from Scripture and experience. For example, because God is good, we may expect His instruction:

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. (Psalm 25:8)
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground! (Psalm 143:10)

More astonishing is that because God is good, He removes the punishment due our sin, and bestows benefits not due to our merits. Grace always runs downhill.

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. (Psalm 86:5)

His goodness is more ready to forgive than our necessities make us desire to enjoy it. Job impatient in his suffering cursed the day of his birth, but God's goodness passed that over in silence, extols him for speaking the thing that is right, and then charges his friends for not speaking of him the thing that is right (Job 42:7).

As His Word says, “His eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry” (Psalm 34:15) because He fixes His goodness upon His people, is pleased to behold us, and listen to us as if He has no pleasure in anything else. He loves to pour out goodness to those who seek Him, and the more I do that, the more He pours out His generous goodness.

 I can get tired of those who often want something from me, but God is not like that. His goodness is bottomless while I might discourage others to go elsewhere. With God, I don’t need to fear that I will waste His goodness or that He will get tired of giving it. 

 The startling reality is that the oftener and nearer I come to him, the more of His goodness I experience, just like the nearer the sun, the more I feel its heat. This encourages me to keep coming, to keep praying, to keep experiencing more of Him.

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. (Nahum 1:7)

He extends goodness to all, yet much more to those who take refuge in Him. Not only that, if the whole earth were filled with His goodness, that part in heaven will never be emptied. I’m blessed just thinking of what that tells me about Him, never mind the wonder of experiencing it.

God’s goodness delivers the righteous, and His justice puts the wicked in their place: “The righteous is delivered from trouble, and the wicked walks into it instead.” (Proverbs 11:8) This means that if my enemies (the world, the flesh, and the devil) overpower me, He gives to them the same treatment they tried to give me. Truly the Lord is my Refuge and Deliverer. 

The Lord’s goodness is above any of my efforts to be good. As Charnock says, we are at best shallow streams, whereas God is like a teeming ocean that can fill the largest as well as the narrowest creek. Several creatures answer several necessities, but our one God can answer all our wants. He is a universal fulness to fill our universal emptiness. He has the sweetness of all good while we have a small measure that vanishes when we cease to exist. Nothing or no one can rob God of His goodness. He is the same forever and ever.

PRAY: All this is more motivation to seek You, Lord. There is no other goodness worthy of my supreme love, no other goodness worthy my deepest thirst. How can I express the hunger created in my heart as You reveal to me the wonder of You? Not only are You the greatest good, You desire to grant that goodness to a sinner such as I. What a great blessing to receive Your great goodness and grace.