God is Good

Growing up, my family had a prayer that we would recite at most meal times.  It is a prayer that many of you are familiar with.  It goes like this:  “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food, by His hand, we are fed, give us Lord our daily bread”.  One of the reasons I liked this prayer as a child is that it is fairly short and didn’t require me to wait long before digging in.  But as I’ve gotten older and hopefully ,wiser, I’ve begun to reflect more on the goodness of God.  Let’s look at the following words of Jesus in Matthew 7:9-10:  9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

We have been told in the previous verses that we should ask, seek and knock and that we will receive that for which we ask.  Now, a key component in asking is who it is that you are asking.  There are people that if we ask for something good, we might expect to get something, how shall I say it, “less than good”.  But that is not true with God.  When we ask for something good, we will not get something less than good.  But this requires faith to believe because there are times when we “receive” things that sure do appear to be “less than good”.  In fact, sometimes we receive things that appear to be downright horrible.  But Jesus makes the argument that even though we human parents make mistakes all of the time (the evil part) we still try to give good gifts to our children.  How much better are the gifts given to us by a perfect Father?  So, even when it doesn’t look like we are getting a good gift, in reality it is intended for our good and for God’s glory.   Through the lenses of faith, let’s pray that we can see the goodness in the gift.