I’ve been spending too much time thinking about all the things I don’t know. That list has always been longer than the list of things I do know, but my shortcomings have been glaringly obvious lately. Trying to fill the gaps has been exhausting. Even more, there’s a numbness that comes after months of frustration over not being able to do anything about it anyway. I don’t want to live that way.
So I’m taking some time to focus on what I do know and it’s this – the Lord is God and the Lord is good.
The Lord is God. He suffers none of my shortcomings. He knows no uncertainty. His knowledge and wisdom lack nothing. His power isn’t just effective, it’s absolutely complete. His purposes, what He has set out to do, are always accomplished. He leaves nothing unfinished – He doesn’t grow tired and give up, and He encounters no obstacle too difficult for Him to overcome. His way is sure and He is perfectly able to deliver those who trust in Him, to see them through every trial and calamity until the very end.
“The plans I have for you… [are] plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
At His very heart, the Lord is good. There is no darkness or deception in Him. There’s no selfishness or mean-spiritedness about Him. His way is perfect. Not just technically correct, but fundamentally good in a way that is completely satisfying. His plans are not good for only Him but good for everyone. He Himself is entirely excellent and desirable and all that He does bears the imprint of His goodness.
So God can be trusted with what is most precious to me. I can walk through uncertainty and upheaval, not because I will eventually figure it out and have all the right answers, but because the Lord is God, so He knows where I am going. And because the Lord is good, so even in the darkest valleys, on the most difficult paths, He’s doing something good inside me. My destination is sure, the outcome is certain, even when the path is shadowed. This is what I know.
“He knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
Job 23:10