After moving 4,295 kilometres, I arrived at my new city. On the same day, I was in the emergency room, urgent care (later in the day), lost my rental, and had our hotel fall through. All this with four kids trekking along with various maladies.
You could say it was an exciting day. Twenty-four hours later, we had short-term accommodations set up thanks to a church relationship. God was good, even on a particularly hard day.
But that should be no surprise. According to Psalm 119:68, God is good and does good. So David can say, “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Ps. 145:9). The sequence of words here matters.
First, God is good. Therefore, second, God does good. Third, God is good to all.
This line of biblical reasoning matters more than you may think. When a crisis hits, you need to know God, not just about him. If God is good all the time and therefore does good to all, then he will be good to you when suffering comes.
Goodness for All
Notice then the pattern of David’s words in Psalm 145:14–19:
In Psalm 145, God’s goodness is not restricted to some persons or at some particular time. Rather, the Lord upholds “all” and satisfies “the desire of every living thing.” God is the end for which we long, the Goodness which all created goodness echoes.
A delicious meal reminds us of the joy that is in God. A sunset recalls the beauty of the Lord in his Temple (Ps. 27:4). God delights to give good gifts to his creation, whether rain or sunshine (Matt. 5:45).
God’s goodness is for all, all the time. Why?
Because God Is Good
David says to God, “You are good and do good” (Ps. 119:68). If God were not good, he would not do good. But since he is good, he does good. In other words, who and what God is (Goodness itself) explains why he does good.
This pattern in Scripture appears elsewhere. God is Light, and he makes light shine (1 John 1:5). God is Holy, and all his acts are holy (Lev. 11:44). God is Righteous, and he does righteousness (Ps. 11:7).
What God is tells you what God will do, which in turn tells you who God is.
God is good, and he does good to you.
So What?
When crisis hits, we often doubt everything. Sometimes we desperately try to find a Bible verse to speak to our precise situation—and usually can’t. But that is not the right way of things. We need to know God before tragedy comes.
We need to know him because of who he is, what he is, and what he does. God is good, and he does good. You do not need to question that.
God does not hate you. There is no hate in him (1 John 4:8). God does not despise you. He is Love (1 John 4:16). God is not rejecting you forever. God loves you forever (Jer. 31:3).
If you know God in Christ, there is no doubt. God is Love. God is good. So whatever may befall you, God will bring you through it to the other side. The path may be difficult, the way narrow (Matt. 7:14), but the destination will be glorious.
