The Goodness of God by Leanne Tipton

I was listening to some of my favorite songs this morning as I worked. One that speaks to me is “Goodness of God.” I absolutely love it, always have. This morning, however, I really pondered the words of it in relation to my life. “All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good.” And I started thinking....can you really say that, genuinely say it, if you have been praying for something for years and years and haven’t seen an answer yet? Maybe God’s answer is no, maybe it is not yet, but during that time can you tell people God is good? If you have been wronged, if you have a terminal illness in your family, if you are facing a job loss, if you cannot see any way out of whatever it is that you are in agony over, can you still say God is good?

All of us have prayers that have not been answered in the way we would like. We are not the most patient people, either. We think we know best. God, please just end this suffering or situation or heartache now! God, if you could handle this problem in this way, that would be great. How very hard it is for us to say, “Your will be done, not mine.” How very hard it is to let go of our desires and dreams and let God take the wheel, and once we do that how very hard it is not to try to take it back from Him.

When people ask me what the hardest trials of my life have been, my thoughts always turn to my kids. I have been through divorce, job loss, death of family and friends, loss of a house, but nothing has ever pulled my heart out from my chest like my kids have. I love my kids second only to Jesus and my husband. They bring me joy, laughter, adventure, great conversations. They remind me to stay young and open to challenges in life. I would not change my decision to have kids for anything. They are some of my biggest blessings God has ever given me. Yet....because I love them so much, I have also been in great pain over them at various moments in my life.

A couple of times, the trials with my kids brought me to my knees. Literally. And I don’t just mean to pray, though pray I did. I prayed every waking hour. I prayed in the car, in the shower, in bed, while working, while eating, and in between crying. I went from being in agony to being hopeful to having very little faith to having much faith and back again. When I look back at my journals from those times in my life, I am amazed that I lived through them. I’m not exaggerating here. There were a couple of times that I didn’t think I would make it, thought I would have a heart attack from stress, thought that surely any day I would wake up in heaven and that would be just fine with me. I am in awe of what God brought me through when I read my journals, how the situation went from bad to worse, and yet here I am writing about it today on the other side and my faith is stronger than ever. Its not just because everything turned out rosy, either. Nope. One particular situation is still very difficult for me. It is ongoing and painful, and it looks like it may finally get resolved but... there are no guarantees. Yet, I can truly say without a doubt that yes, God is good.

God strengthened my dependence on Him, my trust in Him, my utter being on Him. I talked to God through those trials more than ever. I told Him how hurt I was, how sometimes I didn’t want to go on, how I was feeling anger at Him for not changing the situation. All the time, God was using the worst moments of my life to bring me to the best relationship with Him I have ever had. I thank Him for that so much. How easy it is to say God is good when all is right with the world. But He used the situations for good not only for me but for my kids, to strengthen them, to let them know that He was for them, that he didn’t want them or me left the way we were with a lukewarm faith. He wanted us to be able to say God is good all the time, all the time God is good. When things are very wrong we need to remember that God can change anything instantly, but He loves us too much to do that. God does not want to be a genie in a bottle, and He sure doesn’t want our love and faith to depend on Him doing what we want Him to do. God always does the BEST THING for us even if we can't see that at the time, and I praise Him that He loves us enough to do that!!

The end of the song “God is Good” is the part that touches my soul the very most.

“I love your voice, you have led me through the fire,

In darkest nights, you are close like no other.

I’ve known you as a father, I’ve known you as a friend,

And I have lived in the goodness of God.”