Bill Johnson - God Is Good, He Is Better Than You Think
All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. This doesn’t mean all things come under His design; it just means He’s able to reverse the effects of tragedy and turn it into triumph. It’s critical that we hold dear in our hearts this understanding of God’s goodness so that one element is never in question when something happens. This means that if I don’t question His goodness, I get to be a part of the solution. There is a verse in Ezekiel 39:29 that says the Lord speaks and says, «I will not hide my face from them any longer, for I will have poured out my Spirit on them.»
So, think through this: God says, «I’m not going to hide my face.» When we think of the face of God, we must think of the perfect, affectionate, loving Father whose countenance expresses delight and joy over His child. When we talk about the face of God, we are referencing that which displays favor and marks us with eternal purpose. He says, «I will not hide my face from them any longer,» why? Because «I will have poured out my Spirit on them.»
What is He saying? The outpouring of the Spirit always contains the face of God. Anytime the Spirit of God begins to move in a room, maybe in worship, the face of God is there. Anytime God begins to move in a room, and people start getting healed, or people come to Christ, marriages start getting restored, and people abandon the bitterness and resentment that brought them into the room, they start getting freed and delivered. What’s happening in that move of the Holy Spirit? The face of God is behind it all, which is what the delightful face of a loving Father brings, and it is the birthplace of hope. Seeing who is there, seeing His heart, His purpose, His plan—you cannot help but have hope in that situation.
The Lord gave us statements like «All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.» All things work together. I’ve even reiterated this reality in recent weeks: it’s a good reminder for me, and it’s a good reminder for you. All things work together for good. My favorite restaurant is French Laundry, glory to God, in Napa Valley, and I remember the first time I went to this restaurant. I just like things when I can tell the chef, architect, author, or whoever it might be, that they were so intentional in the way they laid things out—in this case, just the way they prepared the food.
I’ve got nine courses; they are all small, yet you end up full. I know it’s a miracle; I don’t know how it happened. I sat down for the first time with Benny and another couple friends of ours, and they brought me this course dominated by two things I did not like: immersed in sauce, the two things were oysters (I know some of you like them—they remind me of something foreign) and caviar (I was never a fan). So they served this to me, and I looked over at Benny and said, «Honey, I’m paying too much money for this to not at least taste it.» So I took a bite, looked at her, and said, «I want a chili bowl full of this stuff! How could he take two things I don’t like, mix them together with a bunch of things I do like, and make it, to this day, one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life?»
In the same way, our Master Chef takes the bitter, the tasteless, the meaningless—the stuff that is too spicy, too sweet, or too sour—and puts it together in the perfect blend. And at the end of your life, you look back and say, «I wouldn’t change a thing.» I wouldn’t change a thing because every single part of my life He took by His grace and worked it together to bring Him glory. It’s the most satisfying meal I’ve ever had in my life. I wouldn’t change a thing. He has promised us and designed life in such a way that there are always discoveries to be made.
He is the one who said, «Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me.» In other words, the great treasure is in the middle of the greatest loss. You can feed your soul on whatever you want, but you have the opportunity to encounter God in a way that you’ll never have a chance outside of the valley of the shadow of death. It’s not self-determination; it’s surrender. It’s yielding to the purposes of God; it’s yielding to the Word of God. He is the one who has declared this to be so.
He goes on and says, «He sets a table before me.» That table is a place to eat—French Laundry! It’s just about time for lunch; I’m just doing you a favor by giving you motivation here. He prepares a table before me. What is that? It’s a place of fellowship, encounter, engagement, personal pleasure, delight, and joy. He sets that table in the presence of my enemies. If all I see are the enemies, I have missed the table that He put there.
We all have different stuff going on. Most of you know what my family and I have been facing—the tragic loss last month. But there’s also a table; there is a table. There is a table of intense fellowship, a great delight, personal pleasure, a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment; it’s there—much like an Easter egg hidden in a bush. I know it’s in there! In our Easter egg hunts, we put small amounts of cash in most of the eggs, but there are a few eggs with much larger bills in them. One of my grandsons went to his dad before everyone was released to find the eggs. He said, «Dad, where is the one with all the money?» Brian, my son, was so impressed that his son had the courage to ask that he told him right where it was. So he went over and got, I don’t know, a $20 bill or what was in there, but it was a good egg!
You know what? Sometimes you just ask the one who hid it. It’s a funny story, and there’s more, but I’ll leave it right there. Just think with me for a moment. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t think there was a possibility of being rewarded for asking. There’s something about his father’s nature that he responded to—a very inviting nature of exploration, discovery, and personal success.
If you’re sitting in the middle of maybe a personal loss, a financial crisis, a legal matter—whatever it is, we all have stuff—there’s a table there. He says the one who cannot lie has declared over your life, «There’s a table there,» and that table will nourish you; it will strengthen you.
Is anybody else glad that He made food good—except for cilantro? In my opinion, God sees people eating cilantro and says, «It was decoration!» I just offended three-quarters of the room! Some of you are with me, come on, put your hands up!
The table that He set is not just for your strength; it’s for your pleasure. I haven’t done an extended fast for over a year. Last spring, I did a long one, and I mention it only because it’s the only time I watch the Food Channel: when I’m on an extended fast because it gives me hope. It helps me have a sense of anticipation that my life is not over and there will be food yet again. I watch the Food Channel—I watch it religiously when I’m fasting, and I do mean that religiously. I watch a number of things, and I download recipes that they give; it’s the only time I do that.
The last time I fasted, I did a 40-day fast years ago, and during those 40 days, I bought 29 cookbooks. If you’ve ever bought anything on Amazon.com, you know you buy something and then it says, «People who bought that cookbook also bought these.» I’m not into words; I’m into pictures. Sell me on the pictures, and I see why they bought that book! I need to eat that and that!
So I bought cookbooks the last time I fasted. My daughter inherited some of my cookbooks, and I forgot because I don’t use them. It’s the worst part! I’ve never admitted this before, but I have not cooked one thing out of any of those cookbooks. They are there to inspire me; they have pictures! I become inspired on the Food Channel. A show I found out this morning has a name; it’s called «Chopped.» On that particular show, they put random ingredients together, and the chefs competing don’t know what’s there until they lift the veil.
They have spicy mustard, sardines, cauliflower—things that aren’t related at all—and they put them together, saying, «This is your challenge!» These chefs are masters at cooking, and they take these random ingredients and make some exotic, enjoyable meals. Romans 8 says, «Buy cookbooks when you fast!» That’s what it says!
Romans 8 says that He causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. All the ingredients—the ingredients you wouldn’t have shopped for or bought—all the ingredients of your life that you never signed up for, all the stuff that you regret, as well as the good things—yes, your faith and breakthroughs. The Master Chef is able to take this hodgepodge of ingredients and create a masterpiece, and that’s His covenant with you; that’s His covenant with me.
Because that is true, the greater the reality, let me rephrase that, the greater our awareness of the truth of that reality, the greater our bent to be thankful in everything. Ignorance in that one area of God’s sovereignty causes us to trust ourselves over Him. The absence of thankfulness is self-trust. Thankfulness is one of the most profound weapons that God has given us in our arsenal.
I hope to take you through a number of verses just to show you some concepts on why God is building in us to be a thankful people. I think probably most everybody in the room would say you’re a thankful person. Our problem is that we cultivate a thankful heart over all these things. We acknowledge God’s in charge—He’s the one who provided the job, gave me this child, or whatever it might be. We have our list of things. But we almost all have something over here that we’re not thankful for, and we justify it because it’s the work of the enemy—something bad happened in my life, this or that.
So we have a special category for things, hoping that God will just vindicate us—not realizing that being thankful involves saying, «In everything, give thanks.» He didn’t say, «In almost everything, give thanks.» Neither did He say, «Just do your best; you know I’m rooting for you—just do your best.» He didn’t say that; He said, «In everything, give thanks.»
So here’s this glaring problem, this conflict, this disappointment—whatever it might be—this is here, and I’m cultivating thankfulness here, but I’m unwilling to deal with this very thing that haunts me. What’s the problem? Any area of my life in which I am unable or unwilling to give thanks will have a measure of influence and control over my life, and not for good. It will have a voice where it shouldn’t have a voice.
«God, why is this constantly tormenting me?» Because you’ve not buried it in thankfulness. Why is this thing constantly there? It doesn’t ever go away because you’ve chosen not to express trust in this one thing. We pray about the problem, but we don’t often give thanks for the effect it’s having on the recipe.
If we could see Romans 8:28 more clearly, I think we’d be much quicker to give thanks for the IRS audit, the bad medical report, the loss of this employment, or whatever it might be—the stuff going on in all of our lives. He doesn’t ever tell us to be thankful for evil; we are thankful that we have a sovereign God who is able to use what the enemy intended for evil for our benefit. It’s the expression of thankfulness that immerses that which is contaminated into the grace of God so that God now uses it for our benefit.
In Psalm 100, He says, «I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart. I will enter His courts with praise.» Thanksgiving is all about presence. I will enter His gates. Where’s the destiny? The destiny is the throne room of God. I will enter His gates with thanksgiving; I will enter His courts with praise. Thanksgiving is the specific response to the actions of God—the works of God. Praise is our response to His nature and character. Thankfulness is always intended to introduce us to an increasing revelation of His nature.
Moses said, «Let me know Your ways that I might know You.» The revelation of nature is an invitation for encounter. So, when God gives us His protocol, it’s not a formula we use to manipulate God; it’s how He functions. It’s almost like this is what the presence of the Glorious One demands. His commandments are not restrictive; they are not punishments. They are always invitations to life. Every commandment is an invitation to greater experiences in the life of Christ.
He gives us this mandate: He says, «Enter his gates with thanksgiving; in his courts with praise,» and what’s the result? Before the glory—thankfulness is an expression of trust that keeps us conscious of the presence of God. The backslider in heart will always judge God by what He didn’t do, but those who run with tenderness for who He is will always define Him by what He has said, by what He has promised, by what He has done.
To be as honest as I know how to be, I’ve seen too much of His kindness to think anything other than He is absolutely good—always, always good. We don’t get to choose stuff like «I don’t want to experience any pain.» That’s not an option. We do life. In fact, let’s be really honest: He says things like «Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.» Those verses are completely useless unless you’re going to experience loss and disappointment. I mean, nobody needs to be taught to rejoice if everything works the way you want it to work, right? It’s pointless.
So, His nature is defined by promise and by His history—His testimony—and that’s what we build theology around. That’s who He is. But what about loss? That’s the mystery we have the privilege of carrying. The level of revelation God gives you will always equal the measure of mystery you’re willing to live with. The inability to live with mystery is your resistance to child-likeness. It is child-likeness that gives us access to dimensions and realms of the Kingdom that you cannot access any other way.
There are certain things He has hidden in the journey. For example, several years ago, I discovered something about this: «In the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.» And what I found was that there are measures of His presence you can only find in the valley of the shadow of death. We say we love His presence, and we do. We’re a people who gather to celebrate and honor who He is and thrive on just that presence of the Spirit of God who is always with us. I assure you—there is no greater treasure than Him, and there never will be. Heaven itself is Him. Yet there are aspects of His presence you can only find in the valley of the shadow of death.
It’s only in darkness—in the darkness of soul, in the trial of not knowing what’s going on, and doing everything you know to do, while having things not work out the way you think they should. He is not a vending machine; I don’t get to put a quarter in and get out what I want. It’s a relational journey. I’ve experienced kindness and miracles at a level I could never earn or deserve. I don’t have the right to reevaluate what He’s like because I’ve experienced loss.
It just doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way for anyone in the room; we’ve all experienced this. So I stand here not as the only guy who’s experienced pain; I understand that I do life with you. I’ve wept together and laughed together. I just want to tell you that God gives us these special moments or opportunities to grow down to become more child-like. It’s the simplicity of faith that simply trusts Him no matter what.
It’s the simplicity of child-likeness that says, «You know what? He knows what’s happening; I don’t, and I’m going to trust Him.» I don’t want my «why» to ever take me away from Him; I don’t want to be the one who critiques God—He critiques me. I want to keep that awareness. None of us would choose loss, pain, disappointment, or any of that stuff. I get that; we wouldn’t choose this for your biggest enemy; we wouldn’t do that. It’s not something any of us would gravitate towards.
And yet we don’t always have options at times. So, what am I going to do? Is God my friend? Yes, but He was my Lord before He was my friend. My friendship with God can only go where His lordship has already been. One of the things that has been so valuable for us through the years has been the realization—I discovered this quite accidentally when my dad died. Many of you have heard me share this story, but when he died, I was faced with learning something I had never known at that level before.
It was this: I had just experienced loss. The disappointment is huge; the pain is gnawing. It’s the questions—the «what ifs"—all the stuff. But all of that pain, that discomfort, those questions, the «what could have been"—I’ll never have any of that in heaven. I will be a worshiper for all eternity. I will glorify Him for all eternity. I will bow before the Lamb on the throne for all eternity. I will declare His wonders and celebrate His greatness, grace, and kindness for all eternity. But I will never have the chance to do this with pain; that’s only in this life.
I want to give Him the most priceless gift I can give Him: joy in loss, celebration in pain, giving up my right to understand. He gives the peace that passes understanding, which means I have to give up my right to understand to enjoy the peace He has purposed to give me. We are in that place, and some of you have your own stuff going on in your life where this becomes a very painful process.
But what we do is we give Him thanks. This morning, my goodness, it’s wonderful to be with you, our online family, and to celebrate the goodness of God. It’s not forced; it’s not hard to do—not once you’ve tasted. Once you’ve tasted, you never forget the taste of His kindness, and it puts everything else in perspective. Everything!
So, the privilege of just offering Him celebration and praise almost sounds contradictory, and for some, it would sound forced. But to honor Him as the Healer when you’ve just lost somebody you love through disease is not fake; it’s not hype. This is who He is!
Well, why did this happen? I don’t know. He doesn’t work for me; I work for Him. He never owes me an explanation. He often gives one, but He doesn’t owe me one. I owe Him every day of my life; I am indebted to Him. You won’t know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What you know insulates you from the demonic stuff that happens to dissuade and distract.
What you know, something going on in here actually protects you. Some of you have the mind of Christ so established in you that you can be in the middle of intense spiritual warfare and not even know it because the wall around you absorbed the fiery darts. The wall around you absorbs the conflict.
You’re living inside the walled city going, «Man, this is party time! We’ve got food; we’ve got family and friends. This is great!» Outside, the enemy is throwing rocks at your wall, and you don’t even know it. He’s shooting arrows at it. All kinds of junk is going on, but you’ve become so insulated by the mind of Christ that it does very little, if any, effect on your life. This does not mean it’s make-believe; that’s a reality. Your mind will be anchored and shaped by the knowledge of God, and that thing will set you free.
This liberty and freedom will insulate you from the things the enemy throws your way. So this biblical meditation is different; it’s a word that means to murmur, to mutter, to speak to yourself, to repeat a verse over and over again. The illustration I used a few weeks ago was out of Psalms 127. It’s a great verse I found many years ago when I was really praying for a breakthrough financially. I remember taking this phrase—it’s in the New American Standard Version and also in the Passion—the same thing: «He provides for His beloved even while they sleep.»
So here’s biblical meditation: You take something you’re supposed to meditate on. There are three basic things: One, the Word of God; second, the works of God; and third, the ways of God. So I’m talking right now about the ways in the Scriptures, but eventually I want to get us into Luke 18, where He’s revealing the ways of God to shape how we think.
God’s ambition for you and me is not to equip us to successfully answer questions in a Bible quiz. The goal is not to give you the right chapter and verse for a puzzling question. It’s a good start, but that’s not His ambition. His ambition is for His Word to become flesh in us. In other words, that Word becomes so intertwined with our thinking and our emotions through biblical meditation, thinking, and emotions that it actually becomes an expression of our personality.
So you’re facing a financial crisis: Here’s what I would do. This word meditation is illustrated: you’ve seen Jews at the Wailing Wall and believers at the Wailing Wall rocking; I’m not saying you have to rock, but it’s actually the rocking motion of a Jew at the Wailing Wall that is a physical act of meditation. It’s a repeated action.
You say, «You provide for Your beloved even while we sleep, God! I give You honor; I am Your beloved! I’m the apple of Your eye! I’m overwhelmed by Your kindness, God, that You would call me Your beloved! I qualify for this verse because You said I am Your beloved, and You provide for me even while I sleep.»
«God, I give You praise; You are my Provider even while I sleep. I’ve dedicated my work to You, but You’re bigger than my work. You release resources to me even when I can do nothing for myself. You are the God who provides. You provide while I rest; You work while I rest.»
There’s this reciting of who God is and what He has said. What happens is then you wake up in the middle of the night: your first thought is, «Oh! We’ve got this bill due tomorrow,» and your second thought is, «And He provides for His beloved even while they sleep.» You find yourself literally going back into a place of rest to sleep because you’re resting in who God is.
It’s not mind over matter; it’s not just some intellectual exercise; it’s taking that which is eternal—His Word—and holding it so near and dear that you ponder, consider, quote, mutter, speak, declare, and confess that which God has said to you over and over again. See, that Word is to become, as Lance Wallnau would say, cellular in us; it’s to become a part of who we are.
If I were to come to your family and say you need to develop a culture of generosity, you then go down to Safeway and see someone asking for money for food. You give them twenty dollars to help them with food. That’s an act of generosity, but it does not create a culture of generosity. A culture is developed with repeated actions. A culture is developed when a repeated action becomes our normal response.
The whole reaction—it’s like the initial thought when there’s a need—"What can I do?» Then it’s culture. Now how we start is the Lord exposes the need to us, and we say, «I need to learn to be more generous.» So we drive to where somebody is in need, or perhaps we present a condition of tragedy in Mozambique or the tragedy they’ve recently faced. You dedicate X amount of dollars in an envelope, and you’re committed to that purpose. That’s a brilliant way to train yourself to live generously, but what happens is the Lord is now wanting that action to not just be a repeated one in a religious way but as an effort to tap into Heaven’s culture—a more significant imprint on how He thinks and how I think.
So that when a problem comes, my first reaction isn’t, «Oh! I have a bill due this week.» My first reaction is, «God, what would You allow me to do to be a part of the answer that’s needed in this situation?» The first reaction when that happens on the inside is not being forced on the outside. Don’t reject stuff that’s being forced on the outside, because that’s how we learn.
Somebody will say, «Well, you need to share your toys as a child.» That’s coming from the outside; it’s not coming from the five-year-old child who just got a revelation from God on sharing his toys. He’s being instructed and disciplined into a culture of generosity and kindness. Are you with me on this?
So we start with external instruction, but the ambition is for this thing to become so deeply a part of us that it becomes our initial response. I don’t have to think, «Ah! I need to choose generosity.» If you’re in that place, that’s a good place to be; just keep it up until you don’t have to think anymore. It’s true; it’s the truth!
So here, Jesus gives a parable, and He says, «You need to pray, and you need to always pray, aware of who I am.» You take the ways of God; He’s faithful and true—God, You are perfectly faithful. I’m serious. You have to find the time. Meditation requires shutting down all external distractions.
At the heart of biblical meditation is the ability to be lost in Him—literally lost. So you fight for this time. You go home; you have children, and you lock yourself in the bathroom. You just grab your moments. You tell your husband, «Run interference for me; I’m meditating.»
Honestly, you get before the Lord and say, «God, You are faithful and true. It’s impossible for You to lie. You are faithful because it’s Your nature; it’s not even a choice. You don’t have to choose to do the right thing; You are the right thing. You are faithful and true; it’s impossible for You to deceive. You are the perfect Father who is everything I need. Everything I will ever need, everything I long for is actually found in Your Person. You heal because You’re the Healer. It’s not just a decision; it’s Your nature that when we take You and put You with disease, disease has to go! God, this is who You are.»
You rehearse this before Him and meditate, contemplate, and think about His nature and His ways. Pretty soon, you find yourself prophetically responding to challenges and needs around you because of what you’ve become. You’ve taken care of your inner world. Your inner world is healthy because it’s now founded on the revelation of the nature of God.
If God is as good as we say He is or as good as the Bible says He is—more importantly—then I owe Him a lifestyle of big dreams. It would be like inheriting 10,000 acres. You stand on the border of that 10,000 acres and never explore what you’ve inherited. You can boastfully say, «It’s all mine,» but what does that mountaintop look like? What does that lake over there look like? Are there any fish in that stream? What kind of timber is there in this inheritance you have?
Faith explores what revelation reveals; it’s vital that we use our faith to explore that which God has proportioned for us. What I owe Him is to illustrate my conviction—my embracing the lifestyle of dreaming, of settling into the goodness, delighting in the goodness of God—is actually to dream in a significant way. Jesus came, we know, to reveal the Father.
I know many people in the room had horrible experiences at home, and you didn’t have a father, or still don’t have a father that inspires dreams. But in this relationship, this particular Father invites us to stretch the envelope, invites us to go above and beyond; in fact, He almost dares us when He says, «I’m going to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all you could ask or think.» I’m going to reach beyond your prayer life; I’m going to reach beyond your imagination. That’s the realm He lives in, and He’s inviting us into this journey.
In John 14, 15, and 16—three chapters—He has four times where Jesus said, «Ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you.» Now we instinctively know from the weightiness of the rest of Scripture that He’s not inviting us into a self-centered lifestyle. He’s not inviting us into this journey where we build our own empire and become the king of the mountain.
It’s not that. Anyone who thinks that hasn’t read the rest of the book. He’s inviting us into this scary journey where we actually come into a place where anything you ask for is done. He’s looking, though; look at His heart. He’s looking for co-laborers. When He said, «Ask whatever you want,» He didn’t say, «I’ve made you to be a robot, and you are to repeat back to me what I tell you to want.»
If I were a robot, I wouldn’t mind but doing anything for and with God is an absolute honor and privilege. If I am a servant and not a friend and just do what He tells me to do, I’m good with that. I actually am very good at receiving a list and just getting that stuff done.
The scary thing is He’s invited me into a relationship, and in that relationship, He’s put Himself—I like to put it—He put Himself at risk by saying, «Son, ask whatever you want. Abide in Me; stay connected to My manifest presence. Let My words abide in you; keep what I say in the center of your heart, and I will trust you to shape the course of history through your prayer life because anything you ask for will be done.»
We owe God extreme dreams, and disappointment kills the capacity for dreams. Not knowing how to handle disappointment is an entire other study. Oftentimes, we let our religious environments known for resisting change of any kind, or the other extreme is the disappointments that happen in life just to kill that capacity for a dream.
But you were born to dream; everybody in this room. We never reach our potential apart from the capacity for dreaming. In Psalm 67, it starts with a prayer for blessing. The psalmist writes, «Lord bless me,» which I like. Any prayer that starts that way is good! «Lord bless me.» Then he says, «Cause Your face to shine upon me.» That face is the picture of a father’s approval.
«Cause Your face to shine upon me, that Your way would be known on the earth.» What does that mean? That Your way—Your nature, who You are—would be manifest in the earth because of how You treat me. Listen, folks, you have an obligation! This is not a luxury; this is the essence of who you are. You’re a son, a daughter, connected to a perfect Father. Now dream and display it!
He says, «Bless me; cause Your face to shine upon me,» that «Your way would be known in the earth.» Here’s the interesting thing in your salvation to the nations: Salvation to nations. We know that tragedy brings people to Jesus; we know that. I don’t blame people in crisis, in war, or if they’re in prison or have faced earthquakes or whatever it is—people turn to the Lord. I’m thankful that it happens and that ministers of the gospel, they’re in crisis to share their faith, and people find peace in God.
I’m thankful for that. But what would it be like to have salvation impact the course of history for entire nations because the goodness of God was revealed upon the people of God? I’m not talking about becoming wealthy and being the person everybody is jealous of; that’s a poor counterfeit. Wealth is in the presence of God—the peace of God in the middle of difficulty.
It’s being able to trust when everything is crazy; it’s having enough resources and more than enough to be able to sow into other people’s lives. It’s the giftings, it’s the insights, it’s the spiritual activity of God in and through us. It’s having friends that would take a bullet for us. I mean, these are the things that make us wealthy—the family members that actually love each other and care for each other.
This reminds me of a friend who once said, «I’d take a bullet for you—not in the head, but maybe in the leg or something.» It’s that third-grade sense of humor! Sorry! Not in the head, but maybe in the leg or something! Where was I? I don’t know; I just got shot in the leg! What happened?
So, the goodness of the Lord upon a people who have found a capacity to think large and dream significantly—again, not about being at the top of the stack, but having the resources of Heaven to empower people around you to succeed—is the privilege in life. Hosea 3 says that in the last days, people will fear God because of His goodness. How good does it have to be the goodness on your life?
So you got a promotion; people will just think you worked hard! You’re the one millionth customer at Safeway and you win a brand new car; people just think you’re lucky. What kind of goodness does it have to be to actually bring salvation to nations? What kind of goodness does it have to be to bring people to drop to their knees in the fear of God—a fear of God that doesn’t drive them away but instead endears them to Him?
The goodness of God, I believe, requires us to dream big. Romans 8:28 is a verse that probably most of us can quote: «All things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.» It doesn’t mean all things come under His design; it just means He’s able to reverse the effect of tragedy and turn it into triumph.
It’s critical that we hold dear in our hearts this understanding of God’s goodness so that one element is never in question when something happens. This means that if I don’t question His goodness, I get to be a part of the solution. So, I want to pray for that. I want to pray that together you and I would have a great impact on the world around us by not questioning His goodness, but going beyond that—living with the conviction of His goodness to the point we become a redemptive part of the solution.
We pray according to God’s redemptive work to see breakthroughs in people’s lives. So let me pray for you. Father, I ask in Jesus' wonderful and glorious name that You would call every person to come into a realization that Your goodness is the greatest reality there is, and that together we would be able to live with that sense of goodness, the conviction of who You are, until we see things that are impossible and broken beyond repair come back into full restoration.
Lord, in fact, I pray the decree that Solomon made—that there would be a restoration seven times greater of things that were stolen from people involved in this right now; that there would be such a breakthrough that we would watch as You restored every household, every individual, seven times restoration of whatever was stolen or broken. I pray this for the honor of the name of Jesus so that as these things play out in our lives, You would be glorified because Your goodness has been realized. I give You thanks in advance, Father. Thank You. Amen.