God Is Good—No Matter What
With God, all things are possible, and he easily
factors in our human weaknesses. He is both sovereign and providential — and he
providentially chose to give us human beings a free will, risking our likely
revolt. He knows what we do to each other. He knows what the devil does to us. He’s
still God, and he loves us. He knows how everything will come out in the end. He
takes the hands of those who ask him to guide them, and the shepherd of our
soul will restore to them the years that seemed to have been lost forever.
James W. Goll
I had what you might call a “divine
appointment.”
One morning, the Holy Spirit interrupted my
thinking with the strong sense that I should leave the house and drive over to
a local commercial establishment called The Factory, where I would meet
somebody.
I was reluctant to stir myself; I was
feeling kind of down, and it seemed as if it might be a waste of time.
The Factory is a handful of upscale shops,
places to eat, and other enterprises housed in a collection of refurbished
warehouses.
I decided to head to a café I knew, where I
could order something and just sit a while.
So, I got my organic, freshly made juice
and a little bowl filled with nuts and fruits, and I sat down with it.
Another customer
came in, and he stopped and looked at me. “Are
you, like, could you maybe be James Goll?”
I did my Clark Kent
routine because you never know who you might be talking to: “Well, sometimes.”
He asked if we could sit down together.
Turns out, he was an old friend.
We hardly recognized each other because it
had been at least twenty-five years since we had last seen each other.
Even though both of us had lived in the
same general area for the past eighteen years, our paths had not crossed.
We had actually gone together on a mission
trip to Moscow all those years ago.
Since we had last seen each other, both of us had gone gray (in my case, also sparse on top), and it wasn’t only because of the passage of years.
We caught each other up on all that had
happened in the past two decades. I told him my story in brief, and then he
told me his.
This man was absolutely broken. He had been
married when we had traveled to Russia, but afterward he had gone through a
divorce, lost his job, and a lot more.
Everything seemed to keep going so very
wrong.
I thought of Job,
so I shared with him a passage from the Book of Job that had become meaningful
to me: “For there is hope for a tree, if
it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not
cease” (Job
14:7 NKJV).
I also told him to read the next two
verses, although I was actually uncertain about what they said.
As it turns out,
those two verses are quite significant: “Though
its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at
the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant” (Job 14:8–9 NKJV).
We were sort of like two old stumps, he and
I, somewhat lifeless and seemingly uncared-for.
And yet the message of our always-good God
is that he wants to bring life back.
He can revive and restore even what appears
to be cut down to its roots. At the mere scent of divine water, God’s miracles
can happen!
Neither of us had experienced full restoration
yet, but we could have hope.
By bringing us
together in a “chance” meeting, God brought both of us closer to being able
once again to “bud and bring forth
branches like a plant.”
Out of his goodness, God showed us that he
cares, even if we still look like a couple of weathered stumps in the ground
(at a health food café, no less!).
He doesn’t stop being good when I forget he
is good or if I never understand in the first place that he is good.
God is good, period.
Each one of us needs to ask the Holy Spirit
to graft that truth into our souls because otherwise we will continue to wobble
in our faith.
We do not yet know God anywhere near as
well as he knows us, but he would like us to come closer to knowing him well.
To know him is to love him and to believe that he cares.
To help myself remember this truth, I long
ago adopted as one of my life verses this passage.
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened,
so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of
the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness
of His power toward us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18–19 nasb
I pray it for myself on a daily basis
because I know that unless God enlightens the eyes of my heart, I will never
arrive at the hope of his calling, nor will I have any comprehension of the
riches of his goodness toward me and toward anyone who believes in him.
Whenever you go through difficult times,
pray the Bible.
It works. It opens the eyes of your heart.
Don’t ask me how it works, but somehow two
plus two equals five.
With God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26; Mark
10:27),
and he easily factors in our human weaknesses.
He is both sovereign and providential — and
he providentially chose to give us human beings a free will, risking our likely
revolt.
He knows what we do to each other. He knows
what the devil does to us.
He knows how everything will come out in
the end.
He takes the hands of those who ask him to
guide them, and the shepherd of our soul will restore to them the years that
seemed to have been lost forever.
God Is Good!
James W. Goll
This
article has been adapted from Chapter 10: “No Matter What Comes, God Is Good”
in James Goll’s book, Tell Your Heart to Sing Again.
Tell Your Heart to Sing Again bookIf you want to receive encouragement and discover the goodness of God in any situation, then you’ll love James Goll’s NEW book Tell Your Heart to Sing Again! When you purchase the book you will also receive 12 bonus video devotionals by James W. Goll that correspond with each chapter. Order your copy and receive fresh hope for your life today!
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James Goll|June 11th, 2020|Recent Articles|0 Comments
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About
the Author: James Goll
Dr.
James W. Goll is the founder of God Encounters Ministries. He is an
international bestselling author, a certified Life Language Coach, an adviser
to leaders and ministries and a recording artist. James has traveled around the
world ministering in more than fifty nations sharing the love of Jesus,
imparting the power of intercession, prophetic ministry, and life in the
Spirit. He has recorded numerous classes with corresponding curriculum kits and
is the author of more than fifty books, including The Seer, The Prophet, The
Discerner, The Lost Art of Intercession and Praying with God’s Heart. James is
also the founder of GOLL Ideation LLC, where creativity, consulting, and
leadership training come together. James was married to Michal Ann for thirty-two
years before her graduation to heaven in the fall of 2008. He has four adult
married children and a growing number of grandchildren. His goal is to “win for
the Lamb the rewards of His suffering.” James continues to make his home in
Franklin, Tennessee.
https://godencounters.com/god-is-good-no-matter-what/
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