Goodness.

“Are You really a good God?”

The question is small, but heavy. I carry it with both hands, and lay it down as the solid foundation on which I build fear, uncertainty, discontentment. This unsettled question welcomes doubt like a houseguest, provides footholds for all the lies that come parading in at the scent of insecurity.

“Are You really a good God?”

It reverberates off the spaces of my heart where it feels like there’s lack; it bounces off of the obstacles looming before me, the ones that cast shadows that sometimes skew my vision.

“Are You really a good God?”

It’s a bulky question, dense by nature; it crowds out my peace and my assurance. It’s slippery, too, loosening my grip on the only Sure Anchor I know.

Why am I unhappy with the season the Lord has placed me in? Why am I afraid to re-up my commitment each morning to say “Yes” to wherever He leads? How does fear seep through the shield of promises He’s made me, causing my grip to reflexively tighten and give “control” my allegiance once again?

The answer is in the questions.

“How benevolent is my God?”

“How fully can I trust Him?”

“Does He really have good things for me?”

“Is He really a good God?”

When these queries bubble up (or rather, come pressing in with crushing force,) it doesn’t feel like I’m calling God’s character into question. I might defensively tell you, “Of course I think He's good!” But that declaration simply can’t share brain space with the question: “Are You really good?”…because believing in His innate goodness (and, consequently, His intentional goodness towards me,) is a natural result of taking Him at His word, of believing in this crazy love that doesn’t fit into any of my frames or boundaries. As far as I know, faith and doubt cannot coexist. I’m either believing He’s good because He says He is, or I’m not.

What does it even mean for God to be “good,” anyways?

We throw around “good” like it’s little more than an antonym of “bad.” It rings of a mild positivity, nothing really substantial or impressive. “God is good” usually holds no more meaning than “God isn’t bad,” and while I suppose that’s a basic sort of comforting, it feels like a thin and vague place of reference for building trust.

More than that, if good does mean something significant, how could God possibly be good towards me? I don’t feel like I deserve it yet. Or, you know, ever. Salvation is almost “easy” to grasp because I’ve heard about it, and God’s willingness to extend it towards me, my whole life. What’s harder for me to grasp is the way that redemption would work itself out in my every day life… That He would be good, and desire to be good, towards me. That "everyday" kind of grace embodies the heart behind redemption; it makes salvation more than some obligatory offering He’s promised to extend to anyone who says “I believe.” It clarifies: "I redeemed you because I love you. Not because I need you, or because I want to use you, or because you earned it, but because of love. The kind of love that desires your good." See, it makes His relational nature, His father’s heart – the heart that ran towards the prodigal son while he was still a long way off, the heart that ran after the one sheep when he had ninety-nine that were just fine, the heart that craves love instead of sacrifice and our hearts instead of what we have to offer – so evident.

I once heard Graham Cooke point out the link between God's glory and His goodness, and it helped me begin to understand how powerful "goodness" really is. In Exodus 33 (verses 18 and 19,) when Moses asks to see God's glory, God's response is: "Alright then, I'll cause all My goodness to pass before you." God Himself deliberately links His glory with His goodness. Think for a second about what "glory" means in association with the uncreated God.
His "goodness" is not a sideshow or an afterthought, a vague hope or a nice trait; it composes the very fabric of His glory. It is real, it is potent, and it affects things...you, for instance.

One of my favorite quotes (also originating from Graham Cooke) reads: “There is no security in what God is doing. There is only security in Who God Is.” Having faith in His goodness does not mean anchoring your hope in a specific outcome, in whatever your idea of "good" is. It means rejoicing in whatever comes your way, because you perceive it in the context of a faith that believes that everything that reaches you has first passed through an unchangingly good God.

Let that usher you into (real) rest and (joyful) expectancy.

[Some scripture references that helped me as I worked to wrap my mind around the goodness of God: Psalm 31:19, Psalm 84:11, Psalm 34:8, Romans 8:28, Psalm 119:68, Psalm 145:9, James 1:17, Psalm 23:6]

What the twentieth year taught me

I like birthdays; they're like little checkpoints. You don't really realize the days you're surviving are swelling into months and seasons of trial and grace and growth until something prompts you to look up and acknowledge that you're in a completely different place than you were a year ago.

I turned twenty recently, which is mostly surreal. I feel like a child.

But this annual celebration of my first breath is drawing my eyes up off of today and back onto the past 365 days that have earned me my twentieth tally mark; these days that have cut and pressed and stretched me into a shape different from the one I resembled this time last year.

I've been sifting through all these days, picking out the most pivotal moments - some are heavy and sharp, some are buoyant and dreamlike. All of them are now rolled up under the title of "Past," I can breathe steady for my present distance from them, and stretch out my fingers to mine for the gold held in these unexpected vessels.

That's one of the things I enjoy most about walking alongside the Lord - there is something of value to be drawn from most every experience.

Where have I gone in this past year? Physically, I haven't strayed much from Texas. Emotionally, I've sank into oceans so deep, the waters run black. Spiritually, I've walked across deserts, sweltering and barren. I've run so hard I couldn't see straight; I've laid down in defeat; I've moved in circles and ovals and abstract shapes of no real progress, forward and backward and forward again. Right now, I'm catching my breath.

This year I learned that life - even life with God - is messy.

In tandem, I learned that God is sovereign, even in the ugliest of messes. Even when I feel like He has forsaken me because I am pleading and seeking and striving and being met with silence... Even when I am certain that I have earned myself an exception to this suffocating grace of His because, as it turns out, I am absolutely awful at maintaining any worthiness Jesus bought for me... Even when I am the worst version of myself, broken and full of broken things... He is unchanging. Still present, still invariably good. Still in love with me, still excited about me. Still the God who turns everything on its head and gives purpose to every seemingly meaningless infliction we weather. He is still, against all reason and justice, crazy in love with me. And you.

When I gave my life to Jesus - honestly laid everything out before him and said "You can have it all, I don't want to figure this out alone anymore" - I thought I had earned myself a higher standard of living.
I thought I was exchanging dense pains for diluted ones, and difficult circumstances for quick wisdom with hard lines that could be cleanly wrapped up into "lessons learned." But life with Jesus goes deeper than that.

Instead, I got true comfort where I used to have cheap distraction; I got full healing for the gaping wounds I used to patch over with bandaids; I got a real hope that painted every circumstance a shade brighter and more meaningful. But that doesn't remove the need for comfort, the wounds that are inflicted, or the circumstances that need some hope-painting. Life is still hard and weird and misshapen. I didn't earn a higher standard of living - I had just found the higher ground that would always be sufficient refuge.

We are clumsy, fumbling, slovenly creatures of selfish tendencies, well-versed in the practice of making mistakes. The wonderful part is that, as Christians, we're new creations that are being continually transformed to look like this most gentle, most patient, most kind-hearted man named Jesus. The reality of these two truths colliding is that there are things to be ironed out, a process to undergo. The ironing process involves deep creases being met with hot pressure: As it turns out, this is not a painless or effortless process. (And if it were, would any powerful, impactful change really be happening?)

My twentieth year taught me a lot about this process; about how life unfolds when you're a broken vessel walking around with the living God taking up residence in your heart. It taught me that "Christian" is not synonymous with "exempt," that life with Jesus doesn't mean you can't slip into depression or be crushed under pressure or have moments of strangulating hopelessness...it just means you have the all-sufficient solution.

In the coming months, I'll be examining the lessons I've learned in less-vague ways. But in the meantime, I wanted to offer assurance to the weary and question-laden heart, to those who are walking through the darkest valleys and the driest deserts, to those who are suffering under the weight of their own inadequacy, or under the weight of the silence of God:

That, even after the hardest year of my little life thus far, this twentieth cycle towards eternity, I can say with full assurance that God is unquestionably still worthy of all I have to give. I am convinced now more than ever of His innate goodness. It's who He is, and you are, blessedly, not the exception. Whatever it looks like right now, whatever it feels like right now, He is good. Because He wants to be, because that's what He's like. Please don't do yourself the severe disservice of believing anything less. Truth is truth no matter how you feel, and the truth is that He has called you His. His child, His beloved, whom He is jealous for, whom He has promised to never forsake, whom He has promised to work all things for good.