Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Goodness

Comforts and pleasures are not the larger part of God's goodness, though they certainly are included.

I pray that I will not dis-respect His goodness. So I ask myself about when I tend to do that.

I tend to do that when I forget about His goodness or take it for granted.

And, I tend to forget about His goodness when I become comfortable with comforts and pleasures and seek to hold on to them or when I feel at risk of losing them and start to scramble to keep them.

I can cling to them...rather than to Him.

Sometimes God takes away goodnesses from us, particularly comforts and pleasures, so that we will know of His greater goodnesses to us. I have experienced this. But, now, I am grateful for it (even though I wasn't at the time).

When we come to know of these kinds of goodness, first-hand, we hold less onto the the other versions of goodness, because we know that everything has been given to us. True goodness is not held-onto, it is given away. And, we reflect His goodness when we extend it to others.

All goodness is designed to bring glory to God.

I pray that God would help me remember this and that His goodness far surpasses my small understandings of it.