God is good.
What else can I say? Even the most eloquent words fail to portray his unfathomable grace and ceaseless mercies. The LORD our God has been good to us. He has been good to me. To think that the One who determines the number of stars and calls them each by name (Psalms 147:4), the Everlasting God and Creator of the ends of the earth (Isaiah 40:28), would think about me and care for me (Psalms 8:4). What can I possibly give him that he doesn’t already possess? I have done nothing to deserve such blessings. He is all powerful. He is strong. He is sovereign. He holds me in his hand. How awesome is that!?
God has taught me so much; he has brought me so far. When I look back, I can see how God has been working in my life, meticulously shaping me into the person I am today. Granted, I still have a long way to go but have been incredible. If there is one thing that I have learned these last few years is that God is trustworthy. His plan is good. It may seem as though there is no hope but God is sovereign through it all! Has he not proved that over and over again in your life? When it seems like there is no way out, God remains faithful. When you give up, God fights for you. When you can’t go on, he carries you. If we believe that God is powerful, sovereign, loving, and that his plans are better for us than any plans we have for ourselves, then we must also believe that he is also worthy of all our trust. We find joy and satisfaction when we chase after him with everything we have trusting that he will give us everything we need. Apart from that, there is emptiness.
I have learned this the hard way. When I was in high school, I would pretty much be jealous of all the couples around school, namely my close friends. I was always the odd numbered wheel in any group scenario. I was constantly around people who had a significant other and I would long for the day when I would have one myself. Up till my sophomore year in college, this was my mentality; if I could get a girlfriend, it was solve everything. So on my own, I began to pursue a relationship my sophomore year which ended soon after it got started. Everything I had ever hoped for did not live up to my expectations. This left me confused and broken. But God in his grace did not leave me there. He began working in me. Soon after, I realized that for me to be able to chase after God with everything that I am, I have to be willing to give up everything I have, which included my plans and my dreams. Even more specifically, God asked me if I was willing to follow him even if I had to give up my hope of getting married.
This is one of MANY areas in my life I struggle with. I chose to share this part because many of us can relate to it. A year ago, I would have been lying if I said I was willing to follow no matter the cost. But now, I really do feel like I can say yes and really mean it. He did not say that we cannot have anything we want if we choose to follow him, but he is saying that we have to be willing to give up everything we want to do just that.
God is so good. Only in him do we find complete joy and satisfaction. That is why he is demanding us to praise and glorify him! Why would we settle for anything less?
“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is not part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” – C.S. Lewis, The weight of Glory.
The more I lean against God, the stronger I discovered him to be. Our God is trustworthy. We can trust me because he loves us! Like a loving father, God compels us to find our rest in him because we will be restless otherwise. What an incredible promise! What an amazing God. Chase after him and he will take care of everything else.
