Goodness

Last night we had our "young married couples/engaged couples" small group. We opened the night with a Nooma video called "kickball". I highly recommend all of these short videos. They are very powerful communication tools, short, sweet, and will definitely leave you thinking. After watching the video our discussion inevitably turned to (if you watch the video you will know why) "Do we truly believe that God is good?" Some of you may have read that and gasped, thinking- DUH, of course he is. While others of you may have thought- No, He's not. I can't believe that about a God who allows all of this pain to happen in the world.


Well as you can imagine our discussion went deep about the nature of God. We've all had "belief shattering" experiences in our lives. You know, the ones that shake you to your core. When everything you thought was true all of the sudden isn't or maybe what you understood to be true was not the way it was supposed to be understood in the first place. I may have lost some of you there. Stay with me. In my life I would say that I've had 2 major events happen where I questioned the goodness of God. Events that made me think I was alone in this world and all I had believed about life, people, and God was not true. I can tell you those times were scary and lonely. Going through those events made me search hard for the true nature of God. What I found was a God who saw I was hurting. A God that even though knew I did not understand the "why" would be near me during my questioning. A God that truly reached out to me when all I wanted to do was push Him far away. I don't understand why God did that for me. I don't understand why those events in my life had to happen. I don't understand why God lets some of the evil in this world happen. But, despite all of my lack of knowledge and understanding, God made his presence known to me. He let me know He wasn't going anywhere and He truly loved me.


God's nature is good and not like the good that people do or have in them. God's nature is always and purely good. I think when we can come to grips with this seemingly simple thought- it frees us up to trust Him completely. Trust can be one of the hardest things to give to God. I know, it is something I'm reminded of almost on a daily basis. That was the challenge of our small group discussion. If we truly believe that God is good and He has our best interest in mind, then why do we not give it all to Him. It was a great reminder to me of how much my Father loves me and how He wants me to trust Him fully. Why? Because he is good.


Thanks for that reminder God.