God is good, all the time. For anyone who has ever thought “it’s just a cliché”, this one is for you! God is not just good, He is intrinsically good, and I hope to offer you a glimpse of just how much.

Think of darkness and light… The book of first John affirms to us that there is no darkness in God at all:

“These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:4-5

From this passage we begin to see: all that is light is all that is God; and all that is darkness is all that is the absence of God.  How can we know what is associated, then, with light?

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17

Everything that is good and perfect! Imagine this with me if you will. Every good and perfect gift includes life itself, redemption, salvation, and so much more. Each gift to us is like a reflection of God Himself – facets within facets. The gift of redemption alone holds all that is love, all that is joy, all that is rest, all that is forgiveness. No condemnation but rather justification by faith in Him alone.

Darkness then represents everything that is not found in the light. Evil, sickness and death, hatred, lies, slavery, unforgiveness and punishment – none of these dwell in light.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12

Consider this light and darkness as linear; a line that runs through your entire life and touches every decision you have made or will ever make. Imagine then that each decision turns you in the direction of either one or the other – towards light or darkness; life or death; blessing or cursing. This encapsulates the goodness of God in the very fact that He has given YOU free will to choose one or the other.

Add to that line of free will the decisions of your father and mother, and theirs and theirs; and then add to that the decision of your children, and theirs and theirs.  The line continues and it does not even stop there.  Somehow this same line that runs generationally also runs in tight connection with all the other lines around you – those of your friends, neighbors, those within your community and even around the globe. If you are truly capturing the image of this you will begin to see how each line somehow binds together with the next to form a culture and society.  This is what makes YOU and everything you do critical to everything and everyone around you.  You have a choice, and your life matters!

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.  Ecclesiastes 4:12

The goodness of God does not even stop there!  You can see this same pattern of goodness in the very way all the physical, fundamental, and mathematical constants have been established within the foundation of creation (examples of these constants include gravity, the speed of light, the distance between earth and the sun, and so on – each representing those things that do not change from age to age). If any of them were off, even by a fraction, everything around us would be different.  Thank God for the constants, for without them we would not continue to exist; and it is in part by them that we can emphatically trust that there are absolute truths in this world.

Herein is the wild part of the goodness of God.  Now that you have a glimpse of your line in connection with all others and everything else, take it one more step. Our Creator God has the unlimited capacity to run every single equation that could ever exist (even within a so-called string theory multi-verse) and, knowing the outcome of every single one infinitely, He created the universe we now live in. 

What this means is that He already knew the outcome of how my line would interact with your line, how my actions would impact those of my children, how generations past have impacted generations to come, and so on.  THIS is how He is able to take everything that happens in this fallen world and work it to the good of those who love Him.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

What are your thoughts? I hope the next time you hear someone say “God is good”, perhaps you can join them now in saying “all the time”.