God Is Good

I've been blessed with the opportunity to be teamed with Kris Bowen, the esteemed wife of our equally esteemed youth minister, Michael, to facilitate a "Huddle Group" of 10th-12th grade girls on Wednesday nights this fall. We'll have a different theme or "talking point" each week but, to be honest, it'll be hard to top Week One's inherent truth that "God is good." Can I get an amen??!


After the brutally hot summer we've experienced, with temperatures reaching about 170 degrees in the shade (tell me it hasn't felt that hot to you!), it is easy to revel in the glorious weather we've had the last few days and say with sincerity, "God is good!" When we receive a positive answer to a prayer request, we routinely affirm, "God is good!" And that is as it should be. In fact, in Psalm 150:6 the psalmist writes, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." For that is what we are called to do; we are called to praise the Lord. That is our purpose.

The challenge comes in learning how to praise God in both the good times and the bad, through the sunshine and the rain. We are to be people who are doing the will of God, and God's will is that we praise Him. When we fail to praise Him, we are not fulfilling His purpose for our lives.

That's a hard truth, isn't it? I'll be honest, I have been through seasons in my life when the LAST thing I felt like doing was giving God praise. Every time I had to say goodbye to a baby and a dream, exalting God fell far, far down on my To Do list. But the Bible tells us that he is worthy to receive "power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise" (Rev. 5:12). When you read that verse in its context you also find this: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” He is worthy. For ever and ever.

In the opening chapter of Genesis, as we read about the Creation, the common phrase that ties the verses together is, "And God saw that it was good." In verse 31 we read, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." That seemingly insignificant four-letter word suddenly takes on new meaning! And as we discussed in our Huddle last night, while the word "good" has a multitude of meanings, in the book of Genesis we understand it to mean "performing the end for which it was made." The sky, the trees, the birds, the fish . . . and man. "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

Are you performing the end for which you were made? I want to encourage you today to think carefully on these words, and to praise God in all things, because He is GOOD.