A History of Evidence

Nahum 1:7 The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him."

Jeremiah 29:11-12, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you."

God is Good ALL the Time!

There is not a single human on this planet earth that will ever begin to comprehend the full extent of the goodness of our Creator God! No matter how much we try, we will never succeed in understanding. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." In the beginning, in Genesis 1:27, it all started as it is written, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." There is no question that God made us, special in His image, for His purpose, and for His bride. And while He created us in His own image, to have a relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He also made us individually different, special and with special gifts and talents. That means we all have our own stories, our own history and our own individual evidence of His goodness! It's because God made us individually special and unique in His sight, He also gave us our own story that we write along our journey! We all have a story don't we? How we grew up, experiences we've had, memories, where God appointed us to be born, the exact moment of our birth, our choices we've made, be it good or bad, and our testimony of how we came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. It all makes up our story and it all makes up who we are and become! 1 Thessalonians 5:9, "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" When I was a new Christian, I'd often wonder why I wasn't born centuries earlier in the days of our Lord, then later, why I wasn't been born in the Renaissance era. I know that seems silly, but I was a baby Christian and didn't quite understand that I was appointed to be born at this very time. However, as I grew to know the Lord better, I began to understand that each of us He already knew before we were even born, before our parents were even born, and even our grandparents and great great grandparents. You see my point. It is God who appoints our time here on earth, as well as our parents we are born to. He allows our experiences, or He brings us to them (depending on His will and whether we are making godly choices or bad choices) He allows our failures, and our successes because He will use them all for HIS glory when we are presented with an opportunity to SHARE our story! I guess maybe I wouldn't have served the purpose the Lord needed me to serve had I been born in another time, another decade or even in another country. Ah, but the stories I have that I hold dear to my heart! Even through the tough times, through the difficult uphill battles, and through the darkness of many trials and tribulations, I have always felt the Lord's presence, either walking beside me, going before me or carrying me! There were times it was very hard, I'm not going to lie. Ultimately though, once my flesh was prayed aside, I was once again reminded that He was, is and always will be the center of MY story! 

Right now, so many of us are struggling, battling, going through trials and tribulations, having to face all kinds of the unknowns and it can be quite a bit unnerving to say the least. Especially for those who have a limited, or no, support structure to help them divert their focus and to help uplift them through these darkened days. These quarantine, lockdown days that turned into weeks that turned into months now have taken its toll on many of us. Just like the enemy wanted all along. Many people lost friends, family members and co-workers through these times and it isolates you even more than what the "world leaders" are already asking of us. You see, the devil knows, and so does his workers of iniquity in charge of this tragic agenda, when you separate people from eachother, all sorts of problems creep up and it becomes easier to gain control and gain access to lonely people. This is a psychological mind game and it's cruel and unusal punishment, if I may be so bold in stating those facts. But I digress and that's for another day and another blog! There is a sense of real anxiety and depression many are feeling and when those feelings begin to creep up on me, I remind myself that God truly loves me and He is sovereign over my situation! I know He is already working on things for me and I just have to have faith and trust in His goodness! He does not want His children constantly living in fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety comes from Satan himself and he uses that to derail our trust and hope and faith! Just because we are broken, we must remember that God is the healer and He is NOT broken broken so we shouldn't have a broken "view" of Him! He isn't just good when everything in life we experience is good or going smoothly! He is good even in our trials and through our battles. How can I be so sure of this statement? I've lived it and I'm still living it! He is good all the time and all the time He is good! Sure, I sometimes can be the ultimate pessimist and think something is always going to go wrong, because, well, in my life, it can seem that if it can go wrong, it will. What good does it really do though to get so wrapped up in all that COULD go wrong when it hasn't happened yet, and likely won't? Nothing! But it will produce an underlying anxiety, worry and depression, unnecessarily at that! I don't doubt God's sovereignty though, but sometimes, as all of us human, emotional beings can be, are and do, from time to time, I wonder the proverbial, "Why? Why me? Why THIS?" I know God has my best interest at hand, no doubts there. However, when life gets us all wrapped up into a ball from from the inside out and from all of the curveballs it throws at us, sometimes, it's hard to see clearly. 

For those of you who have followed along on my journey and know what I shared with some of the struggles and trials I've endured, you know I've definitely had some difficult times. I'm still going through difficulties and in any other circumstance, it would all seem like I'd be able to see the end in sight. However, all of those issues are compounded by the issues of the "pandemic" and how it's creating even more unnecessary problems for me, and many of you! The "pandemic" and this out of control power struggle in our world's leaders have created a surmountable amount of issues, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. But you know what? I will praise His goodness and His Grace and Mercy! All of which I don't deserve but He freely gives! I will praise His goodness because there is a long history of the evidence of His goodness in my life! Sometimes I see it as I'm going through trials, sometimes I see it right at the finish line while other times still, I see it after the trial has long gone by! It doesn't matter to me any longer when I see it, I just know in my spirit, I WILL see it! I will FEEL His presence and I will KNOW and experience His goodness! I am thoroughly confident, and trust, that we serve a gracious, loving, merciful, kind God who will work good things out of our bad, troubling, difficult situations. We are told this in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Now let's take a quick look at Lamentations 3:22-26 and hear the beautiful words lamented, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23) They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 24) The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. 25) The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. 26) It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." I used the KJV for those particular scriptures because it felt so much more longing and promising in the original text! Unlike us mere mortals, God doesn't break His promises and all throughout His Holy Word, He shows us and tells us that He will take care of us. As I look back over my years of hardships, it's actually astonishing to me that I've made it this far! Without Him carrying me, walking beside me, going ahead of me, I assure you, I wouldn't be as grounded and "stable" as I am currently and nor would I likely be alive, physically or spiritually. That's a very profound thought but it is accurate nonetheless! I look over my life from time to time when I'm going through these trying times and I see what I couldn't see during other experiences in my life because I was going through them. It can be very difficult to go through difficulties and turmoil and see life clearly and see His hand at work. Only until you get on the other side of it will you truly know the power of Our Father's goodness and protection! Sure I'm concerned, and was in the past, I wouldn't be human if I wasn't a little but I'm resting in the arms of my Lord and Savior and I know He will work together everything for the good out of this current situation! 

I will briefly recap some of His goodness through my difficult and turbulent times for those who are familiar but for those who are new, this is to share with you just how Good our God truly is and to point you to the Cross! I had a bad car accident where they subsequently found a "sudden death" cyst on my brain as an "incidental" finding, obviously unrelated to the accident, although I did receive a mild traumatic brain injury with bleeding on the brain and some residual after effects. I told the neurosurgeon that I will not accept this and I'd ask to be put on a prayer chain, of which, I did, starting with my pastor at the time. Upon my follow up MRI the "sudden death" cyst was completely gone! You can read about this particular event in an article I wrote called, "Healing Miracles" found here and a little more in depth in another article called, "Our Moments of Impact" found here. The one act of a careless, distracted driver changed my life forever. I also had my all-electric central heat/air unit and heat pump go completely out at the hottest part of the year and winter quickly coming upon us with absolutely no financial means of getting it replaced. I realized very quickly that I had to solely rely on the provisions of our God and as scary as this was for me, all I had was my faith and trust! It was a very scary and trying time for me to say the least. You can read about this amazing testimony of God's goodness in an article I wrote called, "When God Moves - Testimony of Faith" found here. Then I "weathered" a microblast which was equal to a tornado and saw every house around me damaged, blown down or apart, roofs ripped from the homes, trees spiked through homes and it literally looked like a war zone! My home was untouched save for a few minor things. It's also what transpired right before this horrific storm befell my street that is a huge part of God's goodness! And also a testimony in the power of prayer and being obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I wrote about that in an article called, "God's Favor and Divine Protection" found here. This was a very frightening, sad and devastating event. I also made it through one of the toughest storm events in my life! It was an ice storm of epic proportions in 2009 that devastated our state as well as many others in its path! There was a point during those long days/nights without power which meant no heat and while the temperatures dropping dramatically, that I didn't think I was actually going to make it out alive. Literally. I couldn't get warm. You can read about this in an article called, "In the Stillness of the....Ice?" and can be found here. Now please keep in mind, every single one of these incidences, also had other major trials mixed in with them. I never once went through any major trial or hardship without already going through others when the big moments hit me! There's many more I speak of, and even many more too numerous to share via the written word, but these are some very good reminders of the history of the evidence of His goodness because in each story, in each trial, in each hardship, you will see and feel His goodness and kindness! And the testimony that I ultimately carried around with each event!  

Let God Be Your Comfort

What I've found out along my own journey, is that it's so much easier to wallow in our muck and mire and throw the proverbial "self-pity" party we all like to do from time to time, whether we admit it or not, than to just stop, turn to the Lord, seek His face, ask for His peace to replace your fears, anxiety and depression and look back over your recent past to be reminded of, and see, all the times He HAS been good to us and He HAS brought us through to the other side! It really says something about our brokenness, because we are all wounded, bruised and broken. I've said before that God uses the broken, bruised and wounded to do big and great things in His kingdom and that is true today! God poured out His goodness in the Biblical days and He hasn't stopped today! There is something so devastating about reaching a breaking point, about being so broken, that causes us to seek the Lord in a much more sincere way. It's happened to me more than once! I'm only human and frail to the same degree as the next one is but when I've been at my own breaking point, it has definitely caused me to seek the face of the Lord in a more sincere, desperate and pure manner. I know I can't do any of this life on my own, none of us can, and I know His help is a tear away. Even King David was once a broken man, and through his own brokenness, he prayed, "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me… The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:10 and 17) There are some things in our lives that need to be broken, that must be broken: pride, self-will, rebellious spirits, stubbornness, and sinful habits, for example. These things are on the rise in this world we live in today and is evident all around us! We are now living in a "me" generation and this is creating a generation of "entitlement." It's on the rise and it's not going to slow down anytime soon! It's become a selfish, self-centered and evil world. But you see, when we feel at our most broken, at the end of the rope, God compensates! Isaiah 57:15, "For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones." The Bible says that God breaks those who are proud and rebellious. Pride and rebellion are two very ugly sins and they are what's known as strongholds! They are repressive. They are degrading. They are hateful. They are damaging. The mighty Pharaoh set himself against God at one point, but God broke him and freed His people from bondage and shame. Leviticus 26:13, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high." You see, God punishes all those who proudly resist Him. When people resist Him and rebel willfully against Him, there will be punishment for the unbelievers and discipline for the believers, His children. That's what a Loving Father does! Isaiah 65:14, "My servants will sing out of the joy of their hearts, but you will cry out from anguish of heart and wail in brokenness of spirit." 

You see, all throughout the Bible we are given an invitation to praise our Lord for all of His goodness, for He IS good. We are told this in 1 Chronicles 1634, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever." Again we see this in Jeremiah 33:11 "the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who will say: “Praise the Lord of hosts, For the Lord is good, For His mercy endures forever” and of those who will bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord. For I will cause the captives of the land to return as at the first,’ says the Lord." And again still in Psalm 107:1, "Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His love endures forever!" It's an important part of our walk with the Lord to praise His goodness, to remember His history of evidence of goodness in our lives and it's imperative that we are reminded of His goodness throughout His word! You see, the goodness of our Creator God is one of His attributes as well as a perfect description of His very essence! By His nature, God IS inherently GOOD. We are told this in Psalm 34:8, O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who trusteth in Him." God is the foundation of goodness and of everything that is good. He didn't obtain it from any other source because He is the source! It's who He is and I understand there are some scoffers out in this fallen world who can't grasp this or who refuse to grasp it but there is evidence of His goodness all over this world, in all of our lives. You can run....but you can't hide. You see, people simple can have good traits or do good deeds amongst each other, but true goodness is not in our makeup, it's not part of our character because our goodness comes FROM God!  God's Goodness is evident in ALL of His creations and all that He has accomplished. Genesis 1:31 says, "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good..." We can't earn it. We do not merit His goodness. Even though none of us are worthy of it, it's made available to us regardless of our station, position or crossroads in this life. Matthew 5:45 says: “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." And we read in Psalm 145:9 that “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." 

God’s goodness is personal. He is good to us on a personal level, individually in all the ways that meet our individual needs. God is a personal God, no exceptions. He is personal because we are His individual created being! He individually created each of us with individual personalities, gifts, talents, stories, experiences because He KNEW us before we were ever born! If He took that much care in creating us, then it only would make sense and stand to reason that His goodness would also be individual and personal. His goodness is also a benefit to us as well. I'll mention few of those below. 

The first benefit of His goodness is that it assure us that God's purpose for us is good. Just like any good, loving parent(s) want good for their children, so too does our Heavenly Father want only good for us. As humans, our ideals of goodness is a bit skewered, His goodness is not. James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” It's here that I will once again say that our "ideals" of goodness aren't always the same as God's and we need to remember that good things in our lives may not always show up as warm fuzzies or as happy experiences. There are times when good can be disguised as adversity or hardships or trials that come to us but God can, and WILL, use those same hardships or trials or difficulties for the good which I've already referenced in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." In the above articles of my own hardships, some of this is evident! Clearly! There were no doubt countless blessings all throughout my journey and even the good things that were disguised within my hardships produced goodness, blessings, strength, a more profound reliance upon Him, deeper trust and a closer relationship with Jesus Christ! Another benefit of His goodness is that it offers us security and encouragement. It shows us that we can truly depend upon the unchanging, unfaltering, unselfish goodness of God. Psalm 52:1 says, “Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?
The goodness of God endures continually.” God will always be good because His IS good. Nothing can or will change that about Him. His character, who He IS, does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Forever. He will continue to be the Creator of all things good in our lives and we can be confident He will provide good things for us according to His perfect will and His perfect plan. And the last benefit of MANY that I will discuss or mention is that His goodness draws us TO God! The purpose of God’s goodness is to draw us to Him and this very purpose was was fully manifested in the most highest level when God sacrificed His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for our salvation! If that isn't a show of goodness, I don't know what is! It's because of His goodness that we have been given opportunities to hear His word, the Gospel, and to claim eternal life by accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. 

God's goodness is the core of our Christian faith! How, you might ask? Well simply put, it's BECAUSE of His own desire for OUR good that He freely provided our salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ! Everything that He does for our good is because He IS goodness! Unmatched. As well look all around us, we can, and will, see proof, evidence, of all of the goodness that He lovingly provides to us all, in the life-sustaining provisions that He supplies. From all the crops that provide our food, the livestock that provide our milk and meat, to the natural immune system intricately built within each of us, to the very air we breathe that sustains our lives. It's hard to miss His goodness. There's a long history of it, that's for certain! It's possible to have goodness within us, and even for us to desire to do good, but true goodness, REAL goodness, comes from the very One who is PERFECTLY good in all of His ways, and the One who genuinely wants good things for all people. And it's because of this amazing, wonderful goodness that is given to us, His children, that we should also make this our own goal to show God's goodness to others every day. A smile. A touch. A hug. An act of kindness. A shoulder to lean on. An ear to listen. Calm a fear. Cry with the broken-hearted. Grieve with the ones who lost loved ones. Whatever we can do and are able to do, we should be more conscious of it. Life is getting quite difficult for many and there are many battles that we are all struggling with and a single act of kindness to show the goodness of the one who IS goodness can go along way! 

He's Waiting for YOU!

In closing, I want to say that everything that we are all experiencing, going through, being effected by in this crazy playground we are playing on, and as we try to maneuver our ways around this strange, unknown, unfamiliar, new world we've been thrust into, there is nothing that God can't take and turn around for our good! There is nothing that will hold back His goodness from prevailing in our lives. I know we've all be under a great deal of stress and isolation, some more than others, and I know these difficult times have been exacerbated with "new" stressors and anxieties and depression that maybe some of us hadn't had to deal with before, and my heart breaks because of it! But there is a loving, kind and good God who is waiting for you to run into His loving, comforting arms. He's waiting for you to call His name. If you are not a child of God and haven't accepted His Son, Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, it's not too late! There is nothing that you need to do before you cry out to Him or answer His knocking at your heart's door. You come as you are, where you are and He will meet you with His arm's opened wide! I've written a short article on Salvation called, "Simple Salvation" which can be found here. I've mentioned in another article that J.D. Farag also has the ABC's of Salvation on his website along with some good teachings on the bible and end times. The ABC's of Salvation can be found here. Please don't wait. Your next moments aren't guaranteed. All of these hardships, trials, difficulties will be much more manageable with Jesus Christ and our Loving Father God than without them! Experience the goodness of God today!! He's waiting for you!

In the name of Jesus Christ our Loving Lord and Savior, I ask that you comfort each and every one of your children as they are going through their difficulties and help sustain them in your perfect will for all! I pray for your protection over each and every one and for you to lead them in the way that they shall go! I ask Father, with a pleading spirit, that you speak to the soul who is searching for your Light, and your voice, that they may receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and that they will be delivered out from the darkness of which they reside! Let us all impact the darkness in the world so as many souls that are willing will be saved. I pray for your Love to reach each one that has been led to this post, to comfort them and to give them peace and let them not be rebels any longer! In Jesus' precious name. AMEN!

best religion blogs