God is Good All the Time

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14

These two verses have been my hope in this season of life lately.

Understand, the last two years of life for my family have been hard. In fact, if I look back over 17 years of marriage, the last 48 months have been the hardest ever. A little less than three years ago, we lost our home. A casualty of the burst housing bubble, we packed up and moved from our little community that we loved to a place of stark suburban sameness. For the next two years, we tried to find our footing in a new place that we hoped could be an Eden but ended up a desert.

Sometimes life simply is a desert, I’ve learned. It’s sandy and thirsty and even the most devoted of lovers of Jesus can begin to doubt His goodness.

I entered into two years of doubting the goodness of God, two years of wondering if He really has good things in store for me, and two years of resigning myself to the fact that the desert might in fact be the reality.

What I didn’t understand was that the desert is only a season. God is good even when we cannot taste it. God is good even when it’s hard to see through gritty, dirt-swept eyes.

God is good even when there is no water to quench the thirst.

So now, as I’m emerging from a desert season, from a season of doubt, I still find myself wondering if God is truly good like he says He is.

We moved again. For our sanity, our family and our marriage, and into a community that is closer to our people. A few months ago as I lay in our bed for the first night in this new house I began to weep.

“Why do you give me such good things, Lord?”

There is nothing I’ve done to deserve such gifts. It was there on my bed that I realized that I don’t understand God’s goodness. It was there on my bed that He gave me this Psalm.

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14

I am good. He was saying to me. I am good and I have always been good, even when you cannot see it. Wait for Me.

Slowly and quietly, He’s been walking me through His goodness over the past weeks. Slowly because He knows I’m slow to trust and quietly because He knows I need time to think. But oh, so surely, He’s been showing me His goodness in small bits and in words and hugs from sisters and friends.

So I wait.

Because God is good. All the time.