How GOOD God is

I had to laugh when I read my daughter's blog this morning. There is an area where she has listed some of the blogs she goes to. It said Mom........I thought Mom? Sure enough I went and looked and it was a blog I entered in January. Actually I felt challenged to see if I could figure out how to make a blog.....and I did YEA! But I had not thought much about it since then. I thought a blog could be a good place to keep notes of the awesome things God is teaching me through NANC right now and the beautiful memories of my grandchildren. The only problem was... when do I have time to blog these days? Between work, precious time with family and my Bible Study on Psalms with Beth Moore I find little extra time. Yet today I have a little time so I will start the journey.

I absolutley love to talk about our Heavenly Father and learn more and more about him. A few phrases from an old song keep popping in my mind as I type this .... to see HIM more clearly, to love HIM more dearly. That sums it up for me, I guess. Although I do find that if I want to share Jesus too much with others they either think I am trying to preach at them (which I'm not) or I have lost my marbles. :) I guess one of the awesome things about these NANC weekends is that all of the other folks around me enjoy growing in this area as much, or more, than I do. That excites me in itself. All NANC is about is equipping people to know where to go in the Bible to find God's answers to all situations. That is so cool. The other awesome thing is that for many, many years I actually prayed asking God to give me a yearning to read His word. I liked it ok, didn't do it as much as I knew I should but I did not get a lot out of the little I read. He answered my prayers, in His timing, and that is where I am today-wanting to go to His word. He left us such an wonderful way to know Him. God is just so good (have I said that before?).

So I already shared the three seminars that grabbed my attention at NANC now I will expand on one of the them-the goodness of God. Stuart Scott lead us in the discussion of The Goodness of God. The things he said that jumped out at me are that....

• God desires that we know Him as He is- of which His gooness is a huge and vital part.


• When we are living for the glory of God we imitate and reflect the weight of God's attributes (I need to do a whole study on just that line).


• He said no one rises above their view of God---so true. He gave us tons of scripture supporting the goodness of God.

Get this- We are all either contradicting or supporting the truth of God's goodness in how we think and live. Isn't that the truth! Is God good when we have good times-so easy to say yes. Is God good when we have "bad times"? First thought no, but as you think about how absolute good God is it may be this "bad time" was necessary to protect us from going into something worse. Stuart quoted "It is his goodness to snatch away that whence we fetch supports our security, and encouragements for our insolence against him: he takes away the thing which we have some value for, but such as his infinite wisdom sees inconsistent with our true happiness....to prevent what is evil, is to do us the greatest good! It is kindness to prevent a man from falling down a precipice, though it be with a violent blow, that lays him flat upon the ground at some distance from the edge of it. (Charnock, bol 2. 309-10)

In other words, things can look bad now but, He is shifting things around so we learn joy from Him (notice I did not say happy-happy is fleeting but joy from the Lord complete). Again, God is so good-in the midst of everything. We just have to learn to relax in His goodness and bid to do His will. The Bible is full of people deep in bad times (Paul in prison, Daniel in the Lions Den, the three in the furnace) but totally relying on God and his goodness.

Enough for now but I can't close without noting something Colby did that so touched my dad yesterday. On our way to church this morning (my parents pick me up and we go together) my dad said "sis, I'll remember to my dying day yesterday when y'all brought Colby to the house. I was in the bathroom and when Colby found out he came running down to the hall outside the bathroom door yelling "Papa, I here".

That touched my dad so. He loves that little guy as much as it is possible to love another. Oh my goodness imagine the joy God feels as we call out to Him.....Jesus, I here!!!