Luke 18:19 “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus asked him. “Only God is truly good.”
I was thinking on the goodness of the Father one day and remembering one of my favorite testimonies from the Old Testament.
Israel was multiplying in Egypt so the king of Egypt called the midwives and told them to drown the male children, but let the girls live. A daughter of the house of Levi had a son and saw he was beautiful so she kept him hidden for three months. She couldn’t hide him any longer so she waterproofed a basket, put him in it and put the basket in the reeds near the house of Pharaoh’s daughter. She told her daughter to watch and see what happened.
Pharaoh’s daughter saw the baby boy crying in the basket and had mercy on him, knowing he was a Hebrew child. His sister came over and asked if she wanted her to get a wet nurse to feed the baby.
Moses’ own mom got to nurse him AND Pharaoh’s daughter paid her to do it! You can read the full story in Exodus 2:1-10.
Exodus 18:9 And Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians.
My husband loves the accounts in the New Testament when people cry out for mercy and are made whole. (See Matt. 9:27-29;15:22-28;17:15-18;20:30-33, Mark 10:46 and 52, Luke 17:13 and 14; 18:35 and 43 to start!)
In the days before we came to know Jesus, my husband, a teenager at the time, decided he was just going to go to sleep. He was drunk and had fallen through the ice on a river. He had managed to pull himself to the bank and he thought, “Grampy said when you have hypothermia, you want to just go to sleep. I think I will just go to sleep.” He heard a voice say, “Get up and go home. I’m not finished with you yet.”
He didn’t know who it was in his head, but his heart knew.
Roughly six years later, our youngest son died twice in the same night. Ron was compelled to get up and check on our boys. Luis was sleeping peacefully so he went into Chris’ room and found him with vomit in his mouth and blue. He picked him up and didn’t know what to do so he got in the shower with him and he looked up and said, “You can do something about this.” Chris revived so Ron held him a while then put him back to bed, only to be awakened again to the same scene. The Lord revived Chris and and it never happened again. (Ron met the One, the Creator of the Universe a couple of years later.)
Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
I know a woman who had ugly snaggle teeth as a child. Everyone called her homely, and even the visiting evangelist said something about her teeth. That evangelist came back years later and was stopped in his tracks. He said, “Aren’t you the girl that had the ugly snaggle teeth?” Her permanent teeth came in so white and perfect that everyone thought she had dentures!
Psalm 31:19 Your goodness is so great! You have stored up great blessings for those who honor You. You have done so much for those who come to You for protection, blessing them before the watching world.
Our loving Father is so good that He made a way through His Son, Jesus Christ, for us to be restored to a right relationship with Him! We get to be with the One, the Creator of the universe, and we get to commune with Him, to hear His voice knowing it’s His voice!
I was heading to the grocery store one day and the Lord told me to get an extra gallon of milk and bring it to my friend, Deana’s house. I did, and when I knocked on the door, Alex, her oldest son, opened the door. I said, “Hear ya go, bud! I love you guys.” He asked how I knew they needed milk and I told him the Lord saw him, and heard him and sent me with the milk!
1 Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God’s holy nation, His very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light.
Psalm 23:6 Surely Your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever.
As His, we get to show His goodness to others, for it is His goodness and kindness that draws us to repentance.
Abba, show us those moments that we can show others Your goodness. Amen and so be it.
