We all have a picture of who we think God is.
When we get down to the foundation of what we believe,
the truth is that God is exactly who
He says He is – a good, good Father.
God is a good, good Father. That’s who He is.
But is that what you believe?
Can you utter those words out of your mouth with total confidence that it’s true? Does is come from the depth of your heart and deepness of your faith . . . knowing in your soul and mind that God is not only our Father but He is also good.
I must confess, good and father were not always words I put together to describe God. Throughout my childhood, God was like a cosmic force in the sky that might zing a bolt down to strike me if I misbehaved. After coming to meet Jesus as my Savior during my junior year in college (and boy, was that process you can read about here), God became the one who I’d meet in heaven. Over those early years of my faith, I came to seem Him as my Lord and fair judge. I later discovered His mercy and understood His forgiveness in a whole new way.
But seeing God as my Father, and one that was good, didn’t come naturally to me.
My view of God was shaped by my experience as a daughter of a broken earthly father.
It was as though there was this wall between me and God and on it was a mural of all the ways I had been hurt and disappointed by my dad. That’s how I saw God — untrustworthy, unreliable, destined to fail me. It’s quite ironic, since I put my faith in Son, don’t you think?
As I grew in my faith, God opened my eyes to help me recognize that to have the fullness of life I craved, I needed to discover the fullness of who God really is — not through my biases and hurt — but through the truth found in Scripture. So I spent nearly a year focusing on understanding the character of God, apart from what I presumed to know. As one Scripture built upon another, I began to see God for who He is . . . a good, good Father. As I share in Meet the New You, it was a series of overnights strung together in which my thinking about God changed and impacted the way I lived.
Key to that process was realizing that God was not at all like my earthly dad and His desires were for my earthly dad to be like Him. That new way of thinking brought me closer to the Lord and even opened the doors to healing in my relationship with my dad.
Fast-forward to present day, years after discovering the goodness of God, and I still need to meditate on this truth. Why? Because it’s been a hard, hard year.
For every bit of pain we’ve walked through, I can most certainly recount the goodness of God, but it’s too easy to focus on the loss and he wrong doing.
It’s so much harder to shift not only my eyes, but my mind, onto the steady truth of who God is and what He is doing to redeem all things with His goodness for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). And so, you could imagine, there’s really no better time in my life to hear Chris Tomlin’s rendition of You’re a Good, Good Father play over and over again in my heart and mind. It’s such a simple song, but so steeped in sacred truth.
In our spinning apart world, crushed by the weight of sin, we need more than ever to lift our hearts and worship our good, good Father by reminding ourselves of who He is and what He does.
So may I ask you, again: Is God your good, good Father?
Do you see His hand even in the middle of your mess?
Do you know His love, even when all feels wrong?
I pray that you’ll walk in faith and sing this song again and again until the truth seeps deep into your soul.
{click here to watch the video on YouTube}
Watch the story behind the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_XJ1zyYnA
Enter Chris Tomlin’s Giveaway
How would you like to enter a giveaway to see Chris Tomlin at the closest Worship Night In America stop near you? Enter here: http://smarturl.it/WNIAFlyaway?IQid=pbn .
Get the Song on iTunes
http://smarturl.it/CTGoodGoodFather?IQid=pbn
This post is sponsored by Chris Tomlin and out of the purest desire of my heart to encourage you in your relationship with God.
