GOODness

What is it about the ultimate prayer of surrender that causes such an emotional, knee jerk reaction of fear and anxiety?

We don't have faith in who he is and what he can and promises to do. 

How come that is the ONE prayer in all the lines and requests of a praying soul that is the most dangerous and difficult to say? "I surrender all."

Do you?

How come the minute we pray it, remorse and an inevitable sense of “doom” follows?

How come we, as followers of Christ, think that praying this prayer means that God will change everything, flip our lives completely upside down, and do the exact things we don’t want him to do?

How come we so often believe that he wants the opposite of what we want? Are we that far off the mark on his desires for us? Have we strayed so far off the vine in our relationship with him as to think that the desires planted deep inside of us are merely all of human creating and cultivating? And that, ultimately, he wants to rid us of these and plant in us something that’s completely contrary?

Does anyone else think these things? Or am I alone here?

Why do we treat God as if he’s the antagonist in our so-called God written story?  Why do we so often doubt what he's put deep in our hearts and think we just "made it up" and think "well, that's what I want so it can't be what God wants." What causes us to think that somehow what God wants for us is over there on the other side; and we get a sense of forthcoming calamity because we just gave it all up to our God of the universe and now he’s going to strip us dry.

Hold on a minute…are we still talking about the all-loving Creator? Are we still talking about our Lord and Savior who loves us so much that he sent his Son who died for us so we could live into eternity with him? Are we still talking about that God?

I understand that, yes, sometimes the desires in our hearts are merely a shadow of what truly resides there. We think we desire something and yet God says "Wait, I have something better for you. Something deeper and truer. Something you couldn't even imagine," and we know that such a journey to that "deeper" thing is usually accompanied by sorrow...and joy.  We're scared of that journey because we know it will hurt.  The plucking out of such a thing to re-plant something in us isn't exactly fun.  Sowing is not easy. 

However, we’ve made a grave mistake when we constantly put our God on the opposite side of where we stand.  When he's over there and we're over here and we are constantly at odds with what he wants and what we want.  Of course, there is the continual tension of sanctification, becoming less of "self" and more of the "divine" and to do so, the self must die.  And at times, we will find ourselves in opposition with him when our flesh takes the reigns. 

But if we constantly assume that God always wants the opposite of what we want, then we’ve questioned his character to our own utter disillusionment. He becomes just the Big-Bad-Dad who never gives us what we want.  Do we not realize that our Father wants to give us the Kingdom?  That he wants to give us good? 

By way of our own fears, we cease to take hold of the Truth of who he is and actually believe it. Why do we do this? Why do we so often remorsefully surrender and likewise, expect some “awful fate" to happen once we do?

Because we do not believe that he is for our GOOD.

Of course, not all of God’s goodness for us “feels good,” but it is inherently good nonetheless.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting."

Was his goodness not shown “In the beginning…” As he created, he pronounced everything as “good.” After he created man, he acknowledged, “it is not good for man to be alone” so he created Eve. In the Garden of Eden, there was the tree of knowledge of “good and evil.” In the beginning, goodness existed; and that goodness is in the very character of God.

God does not withhold anything that is truly good from His children.  And he is the source of everything that is good.

God’s wrath is good. God’s holiness is good. God’s righteousness is good. God is good in his entirety. There is nothing about God that is not good. There is nothing God purposes for his children that is not good. God gives to his children only that which is good. And he withholds nothing good from us. God is good, and he is at work in our lives for good. Nothing which God creates, nothing which God accomplishes, is not good.

Got it?

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, to those who are called according to his purpose."

The goodness of God is a foundational truth that shapes our perspective toward him and his dealings with us in this life.

"In the biblical account of the fall of Adam and Eve, it is significant that Satan’s attack was on this dimension of the character of God. It is true Satan virtually called God a liar, but the first attack of Satan was waged against the attribute of his goodness. It was a subtle attack, but one that should be obvious to the Christian."

We do this, don't we?  We call God a liar every time we fail to take hold of the truth that he is good and "go on our own (unwise) way."

The one thing in the garden which was not good to eat was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan’s seemingly innocent question was intended to undermine Eve’s confidence in the goodness of God. By the time Satan had finished, Eve had come to view God as the one who is less than good, and the forbidden fruit being that which is good. Once Eve doubted the goodness of God, it was a great deal easier for her to disobey Him. If God was not good and was not acting for her good, then why should she obey him? Why should she not act independently of God in seeking her own good—the forbidden fruit?

Take note:  Satan will charge and aim to manipulate your perspective of God. And when he succeeds, it gets a lot easier for him to persuade you to disobey your Lord.

God is good.  All the time.  He is on the Throne.  All the time.

It's when you de-throne him in your heart, failing to believe in his very character, that leads you to disobedience.  That's when you take the bite of the forbidden fruit and despair inevitably follows.

If he says "no" or "not yet," it's not because he's punishing you and playing games with your heart; he is only waiting for the right and perfect time to bless you and bring Glory to himself.  Waiting on him is a discipline - a discipline of patience - and only a Good Father disciplines his children lovingly so to make the blessings doubly precious.  A character of a man/woman who knows patience- and has learned to wait well- is a heart to be reckoned with!  The kingdom of darkness will surely suffer for it.

So we surrender.  Bit by bit.  We surrender some here, some there... over and over again. (Because let's face it, do we really surrender it all at once?)  We surrender it as best we can, imperfectly for sure and many times only in part (because we love to cling), and each time we do, we remind ourselves of the Truth that he is good and surrendering to him is good and handing it over to him is good.  Sometimes -many times - it's in tears or frustration and we ask him, "How many times do I have to surrender this one thing?"  And it's in that moment we surrender the useless habit of keeping count of our surrendered-ness on this particular topic and heartache. 

We surrender each time as if it were the first time. And we patiently wait for our good God to come through for us.