{Be Real} In Between: Waiting for Goodness

There are those moments, those glimpses right into the heaven, when the clouds peel back and we see finally see the light and we know that God is good.

This weekend, I was sitting on a lake in a kayak as the sun was setting behind the majestic mountains, watching the stillness of the water, the way the paddles created ripples below. I saw that day how the sun came out when it was supposed to be all rain. And in the middle of this scenery, I thought about how God is meeting a deep desire of my heart, one I’ve prayed about for long hours and cried tears and finally see Him showing me His face.  The words came, heavy under breath:

God, thank you. I see now – you have always been good.

God is good when we are in seasons where we see His good gifts. But perhaps God is even more good while we wait for Him to show His goodness to us. Where He meets us right in the sticky middle – right where our desires want to give way and it feels to vulnerable to even ask Him for that good thing.

We see in these seasons something deeper into His goodness – that He is good not because He always gives us what we want, when we want, but because His love for us is deeper and wider and higher than that. And here are the startling truths, the ones that we can write on our palms in those seasons of waiting, those seasons we don’t want to believe but know they are true:

It is God’s heart to freely give us good gifts.

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

(Romans 8:31-32)

God doesn’t withhold from us, even if it feels like He is withholding.

“The Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold from those who walks uprightly.”

(Psalm 84:11)

And God works all things for good…even if we can’t see how He is working.

“We know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

(Rom 8:28)

We won’t always be able to see how He is showing His goodness to us. We’ll have glimpses; but there are many seasons we just have to do the hard work of waiting and trusting.

In those seasons, we aren’t waiting for God to be good, because He always is. We’re waiting for our eyes to see His goodness.  We are waiting for our eyes to notice the small, intricate ways He is working.

Here’s the thing: it’s always easy to look at what is not good. It’s always easy to look at what we don’t have. But God doesn’t call us to do easy things.

God always whispers us to follow Him onto a higher path – a harder path – but always one that truly gives life. He calls us to see His goodness because we choose to believe in it.

Belief is that a knowing deep in our gut – a knowing that nothing else can shake. Belief gives way to words that slip right off our tongue and not knowing where the words came from.

It’s the place from where the Psalmist David writes,

“I would have lost heart, unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

(Psalm 27:13)

This is how not to lose heart, dear sister…for whatever you are waiting for.

Believe.

Believe in His goodness.

It’s always as simple as a choice.

You can choose to believe and let it melt right into your core, right now – into that space where you can declare God’s goodness even when we can’t fully see what, understand how, or comprehend why.

This is where faith is born; this is where trust grows. We can grow a trust that doesn’t just wait to see God giving you that thing…it’s a trust that can see that God Himself is always what you’re waiting for.

As God’s daughters, we can wait bravely; we can trust steadily; we can look expectantly.

We can cling to Him in the middle of anything…because God is our goodness.

 

“Preserve me, O God,
For in You I put my trust.
O My soul, you have said to the LORD,
‘You are my Lord,
My goodness is nothing apart from You.’”
-Psalm 16:1-2