![]() He upholds and orchestrates every part of Creation by the word of His power (Heb 1:3). He causes the rains to fall, flowers to grow, and the harvest to ripen (Matt 5:45 Matt 6:28-30 Ps 104:14-15). He causes the sun to rise on the righteous and the unrighteous. God’s goodness is revealed day after day in the heavens and the earth (Ps 19:1-2). God looked over all that He had made at Creation, and “behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). God’s goodness is seen in everything He has ever done, everything He is doing, and everything He promises to do in the future. The Lord is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works. (Ps 145:9) You are good and You do good. (Ps 119:68) In other words, there is no goodness apart from God, and there is no God without goodness. Here and in many other places in Scripture, we see that God is good by definition – He doesn’t just ‘act good.’ God isgood in His very nature, and therefore, everything God does is good. When God passed before Moses, He basically described His goodness by revealing Himself as: ‘compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindess and truth, forgiving of iniquity, transgressions, and sin, and His goodness is also just and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished or the unjust things of this world unchecked’ (Ex 34:6-7). To answer these questions, we have to spend time meditating on who God is – bathing our hearts and minds in the truth of His goodness (Rom 12:2 Ps 77:11-12 Ps 119:15 Ps 143:5). Is God good when my life is falling apart? Is God good when my child is diagnosed with cancer? Is God good when the love of my life is taken in a freak accident? Is God good when children are dying in a famine in the Middle East? Is God good when the typhoon hits the tiny island and 40% of the population is killed in the storm? But God’s goodness is one of those things that we might affirm in the abstract or when things are going our way, yet when push comes to shove and all of life bottoms out on us, our confidence in this reality can be truly shaken. And we all mostly agree as we lift our voices and hands to sing the ageless truth that “God is good” on Sunday mornings. ![]() The lyrics of this song are merely echoes of the songs of the ancient psalmists as they raised their voices in worship and proclamation of the goodness of God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good Sing praises to His name, for it is lovely. (Ps 135:3)Īnd all my life You have been so, so good ![]() O taste and see that the Lord is good! (Ps 34:8) Moses wanted to see God’s glory, and God showed him His very nature, which God Himself described as His goodness. And in the next chapter, the Lord descended into the cloud atop Mount Sinai, stood with Moses, and there His goodness passed before Moses and He proclaimed His name: “The Lord, The Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth who keeps lovingkindess for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished”(Ex 34:6-7). God answered Moses and said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you My name ‘The Lord’” (Ex 33:19). One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when Moses asks God to show him His glory (Ex 33:18).
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