God is good!
I believe that the cornerstone of our strength – our strength in the Lord is the revelation that ‘God is good. Ps Bill Johnson has plenty to say about that in his book by the same title and before that in his book and eCourse ‘Strengthen Yourself in the Lord. This week I’ve included an extract from chapter 2 as I believe it is very pertinent to our well-being in or out of our COVID 19 season. He says …..
I believe that the reason many believers fall into the trap of fear and anxiety in the midst of crisis is because they allow the enemy to successfully distract them from the fact that they are prepared with tools they already have in their arsenal. It’s easy for us to feel blindsided by events that we did not expect; but nothing surprises God, which is why He prepares us for what’s ahead.
When we have our hearts anchored in this truth about His nature, we will be oriented to take inventory of our tools and start using them when we come up against a challenge. The bedrock of the response from us [to any challenge] is the burning conviction that God is good, always good! Doubting His goodness, making up explanations for things we don’t understand (the source of a lot of bad theology), or falling into anxiety and disappointment won’t be options for us.
It’s like knowing exactly what to do when the oil light goes on in our car. When the truth of God’s goodness is not firmly anchored in our hearts, we are not only dislodged from our purpose in conflict, but we don’t possess the sensitivity of heart, the faith, to perceive the tools God gives us to prepare us before we encounter a challenge.
We learn this lesson from Jesus’ disciples. Shortly after they witnessed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the disciples were in a boat in the middle of a storm on the lake. In the midst of the storm, Jesus walked out on the water to them and stilled the storm. The disciples were overwhelmed by His demonstration of power, their unbelief, and probably their own lack of readiness to face another obstacle with their own authority. Mark gave the following explanation for their reaction: “For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:52). In this season of His ministry, Jesus was training His disciples to do what He did.
Every miracle He did in their presence was a lesson about the nature of God and an invitation for them to live from that revelation. In calming the storm He was demonstrating a dimension of God’s power and authority that logically connected to the power and authority He had demonstrated earlier in the miracle of the loaves. It’s like He had taught them multiplication and was moving on to algebra; but they couldn’t move on, because they didn’t understand the first lesson. Why didn’t they get the lesson of the loaves? Their hearts were hard. They lacked the basic faith in who God is and they lacked an understanding of the way He works to orient them to learn the lessons He was teaching to prepare them for life and ministry—in this case, facing another storm.
Our ability to connect with what God is doing in the midst of difficult circumstances depends on our ability to remember who He is and what He has done in our lives—our relational history with Him. I guarantee that if you are currently facing a situation that seems beyond your strength or understanding, and you take some time to rehearse your history with the Lord over the last 12 months or so, you will always find a tool—a prophetic word, a Scripture verse that has leapt out at you, a testimony, or a prayer strategy, for example—that God has put in your arsenal, something that provides a key to overcome the present situation.
You also might need to repent for any hardness of heart that has kept you from getting what He has made available to you.
As you become more and more convinced that you are a person with a great identity and purpose, that you are prepared for the moment you’re standing in, and that all of Heaven is waiting to back you up as you choose to be faithful to your purpose, your perception of which forces are the most operative in your life will shift.
Joseph discovered this. As he came into his destiny, he saw that God’s plans and purposes had a momentum and power that outweighed the evil plans of his brothers. He said, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Gen. 50:20).
His statement doesn’t deny the reality that his brothers made choices that affected his life, but focuses on the superior reality that their plans couldn’t cancel out God’s purpose for him. In fact, those evil intentions became the very tools that God used to bring Joseph into his promotion and the ultimate fulfilment of God’s promise. While God doesn’t create evil, evil does not limit His ability to bring about the fulfilment of all that He has purposed to do in us.