by David Falk | Download PDF | Purchase Hardcopy

In one of the most well known passages of Scripture, the psalmist rejoiced, ‘My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving-kindness will follow me all the days of my life’. Psa 23:5-6. The goodness of God was following him. This can be our testimony, for God has ordained goodness for us in this life. We likewise read in the psalms, ‘How great is Your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have wrought for those who take refuge in you before the sons of men’. Psa 31:19. This doesn’t mean that only ‘good things’ will happen to us according to our own view or expectations. However, God has ordained or wrought ‘goodness’ for us. God is good, and His goodness can follow us all the days of our lives. 

When Jesus went about doing ‘good’ and healing, the onlookers were not simply observing a ‘good man’ and ‘good behaviour’. There is no doubt that He was a good man, but ‘He went about doing good and healing’. Acts 10:38. Goodness was following Him wherever He went. And when goodness is following you, people are not simply observing moral excellence or good behaviour. The New Testament refers to the fruit of the Spirit as being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gal 5:22-23. It is evident that kindness is not necessarily, of itself, goodness. When God is being good to us, He is not just being kind. When God is being good; when He is wholly good to you, He is working for you. He is supporting you. The Bible tells us that He supports our lot. When goodness follows you, you can be confident that the work of God is adding substantially to you. The Scripture says, ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend’. Prov 27:6. He is doing good for us even when He is wounding us with faithful wounds. And when ‘Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed’, He did not heal lightly. Where we need healing, we should not cry to be healed lightly. On the contrary, we should allow Him to fulfil His work by whatever means He has ordained, so that His goodness truly supports our lot.

It is strange how the Christian community understands righteousness, goodness, and holiness as His moral virtue. This is not really what the Scripture is saying. His holiness describes His complete otherness, meaning that He is other than we are. And when we find holiness, we find that uniquely sanctified and separated identity that has been ordained for us. We often think of being separated from something. However, we should consider what it means to be separated to our own identity and person. We might call this our lot to which God adds His goodness. The work of God is evident in His goodness toward us. Accordingly, He is showing us who we are and who we were created to be. And this was in the Father’s heart long before time and the beginning.

The psalmist said, ‘How great is Your goodness’, then continued, ‘As for me, I said in my alarm “I am cut off from before Your eyes.”’ Psa 31:19,22. David understood the total ‘otherness’ of God Himself. By this we mean that He is completely unique and holy. We are separated from Him. In this way, we are cut off from Him. Nevertheless if we cry out to Him and receive His goodness, He supports our lot, adding to us and making us more than we were. This is the heart of the Gospel. We don’t need a God in heaven who just likes us. Rather, He is changing us from one degree of glory to another. When we receive the goodness that God has ordained for us we find capacity to walk and live in the unique identity ordained for us. 

Whatever your need, be it small or be it great, God wants to do good for you. Perhaps we feel like the psalmist; that because of our circumstances, we are dwelling in a ‘besieged city’. Psa 31:21. Perhaps it is just in the practice of life’s relationships. Maybe it is in your physical body. Maybe it’s in your emotional life. Is it in your attitudes, in your aspirations, in your disappointments? Perhaps you too could testify, ‘I think I may have made this harder than it needed to be’. Perhaps that is you. What a marvellous acknowledgement. Fall on the goodness of God and ‘see the goodness of God in the land of the living’. Psa 27:13.  

If we find ourselves in emotional distress and turmoil, we need to firstly acknowledge our distress before the Lord. That is what David did in his alarm. He did not fret. He did not become anxious, but ‘He said in his alarm, I am cut off’. Psa 31:22. He identified his crisis. He acknowledged it. Much of our turmoil is simply the result of not understanding or acknowledging our crisis. However, the Holy Spirit has come to enable us. We must separate the elements, distinguish one thing from another and find true perspective. In our turmoil, we often make wrong decisions. If this is the case, we must cry out like David and wait upon the goodness of the Lord. 

Life is filled with many uncertainties. And many of us are traumatised about the way ahead. But the goodness of the Lord is there for you. There is an answer for you. The Bible says that by reason of thought, worry and fretting, we will not add one thing to ourselves. Matt 6:27. Many of us suffer from chronic worry. Many of us are like those addicted to worrying. He wants to heal you by doing good and adding substantially to you. Pause, stop for a moment, and like King David cry out in your alarm. He wants to do good for you. He wants to add substance to you. If you do this, then you will say like the psalmist, ‘My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving-kindness will follow me all the days of my life’. Psa 23:6.

Author: David Falk | Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
Published by Vision One at Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
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