God's Goodness
Pause:
Before you start reading this devotional, take a moment to stop what you’re doing, slow down and focus on Jesus.
Pray and ask him to open your eyes to see as you read the Scriptures, and to open your ears to hear as you wait on the leading of the Spirit.
Read:
Exodus 34:6: “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth’”
Psalm 86:15: “But You Oh Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
Going Deeper:
This is constant. On a mountain, God, covered in a cloud, stands before Moses and shouts His name. He calls Himself, “The Lord, The Lord God, Merciful and Gracious, Long Suffering, and Abundant in Goodness and Truth.” By identifying Himself this way, some Hebrew scholars say that the reader can understand that this is God’s very essence. It is not a list of skills, it is a part of Him, flows from Him, just as light is the sun. No amount of evil, pain, or hate diminishes, obscures or changes His goodness; to continue the metaphor of the sun, darkness cannot swallow light.
Last Week. When I began to write this devotion, I researched and recalled story after story in the Bible where people experienced the Goodness of God—His tangible blessings. He fed his wandering people with food from the heavens, saved the vulnerable from the violent, enacted rules to protect the impoverished and foreigners, ministered to those depressed and despairing, raised people from the dead - almost every page is humanity succumbing to our mistrust in the midst of God’s unstoppable Goodness. The more I was reminded of these stories, the more parallels I saw in my life. I had beautiful personal experiences seeing His quiet, sustaining love in creation watching bees pollinate wild flowers, observing my children explore and unfold when my husband Tim and I gave them space and love. Synapses started firing, I was getting excited to write about these observed mercies.
But then I watched the video of George Floyd’s death, murder, torture. It just felt like too much - too much to take in. The question, quiet yet persistent: “But where is your goodness for my brothers and sisters, where is your goodness?” I had once again looked up and around and my world expanded filling with noise and pain and fear and it was and is truly overwhelming. What good can break into this, God? Can any sustainable, lasting good be found?
Presently. And now, as I continue to move through this reflection/meditation on Goodness, and it is heavy from my questions, even my guilt from having questions, especially after bearing witness to God’s Goodness in my moments — this verse comes to mind:
John 1:46, “Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’”
The first disciples are beginning to follow Jesus and one of them comes to Nathanael and tells him that they have found him, the man the prophets wrote about! But Nathanael replies mockingly after hearing he was of Nazareth, an out-of-the-way, backwards, little town. His doubt-filled, possibly wearied reply is different from the lament that is swelling within me, but it flows from the same source: “how long, O Lord?”
I almost tear up, however, at Philip’s reply to Nathanael. “Come and see.”
I remember God’s most beautiful transcendent act of love - becoming human. Jesus displays innumerable acts of mercy and love through His ministry because He is the perfect image of God. He reveals His long suffering by allowing us to reject Him, spurn His good news, spit on His offering of reconciliation, and then kill Him. But darkness cannot swallow light. His Goodness literally shakes the earth as He rises. The promise of His presence forever gifted to the ones who follow Him, who vow and live to receive and extend His Goodness.
The Spirit invites me, “Come and see.” He has brought me to Jesus. And it doesn’t end with the cross - it begins there.
I’m here, Spirit, I’m sad and confused. One minute I see it and feel your gift of breath, your gift of a blooming sunset, pinks and lavenders. Your gift of the whisper, “I love you, Beloved.” I see and feel and relax into your Goodness. But God, there is so much that is deeply unjust, people are in so much pain, and right now there seems to be this collective grief spilling out of us onto one another and we can’t hold it. You must hold it, You must hold us.“But You Oh Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, Turn to me and be gracious to me; give strength to your servant, and save the son of your maidservant.” In Jesus’ good name.
Pray:
Respond to God in prayer by speaking to Him about what stood out to you from this passage this morning.
Listen:
What is the Holy Spirit saying to you this morning?
Apply:
What are you going to do in response to what God is saying to you from the text and by the Spirit?