Too Good to be True?

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23:6a)

Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.
~John Milton

“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,” David declares. “Surely,” denotes a fact as certain as it is comforting. Too good to be true? No, God is much too good not to be true.

He is good—as good as we’re capable of imagining Him to be—the only good person in the world. As Jesus said with such utter finality, “No one is good—except God” (Luke 18:19).

He is love—as loving as we need Him to be. Everything is about love—or the lack of it, as reductionists say. It’s a simple human fact that we cannot long survive without tenderness, caring, and someone who is willing to accept us as we are.

The psalms are filled with affirmations of God’s love for us: “I trust in your unfailing love” (13:5), David writes. “I . . . rejoice in your love” (31:7). “You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you” (86:5). “The Lord is good and his love endures forever” (100:5). “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever” (106—2 times). “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever” (Psalm 118—5 times). “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever” (Psalm 136—26 times).

David’s word for God’s tender affection is a term used in the ancient world to mean love that flows out of deep emotion rather than duty. It’s a kind and gentle love. That quaint, old word lovingkindness may still be the best translation of all.

It’s the way God thinks of Himself: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in [lovingkindness] and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). David took that revelation to heart, twice quoting God’s exact words: “But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in [lovingkindness] and faithfulness (Psalms 86:15; see 103:8).

David often linked God’s goodness and lovingkindness together. In his mind they were inseparable components of God’s gracious care. Here in his shepherd poem he personifies these two attributes as God Himself. In these tender manifestations He follows us, shadowing us, attending us, assuring us that no matter what transpires today, tomorrow, or the next day—it cannot separate us from God’s goodness and love.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” says Paul.

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:35–37

I may fall flat on my face; I may fail until I feel old and beaten and done in. Yet your goodness and love is changeless. All the music may go out of my life, my private world may shatter to dust. Even so, you hold me in the palm of your steady hand. No turn in the affairs of my fractured life can baffle you. Satan with all his braggadocio cannot distract you. Nothing can separate me from your measureless love—pain can’t, disappointment can’t, anguish can’t. Yesterday, today, tomorrow can’t. The loss of my dearest love can’t. Death can’t, life can’t. Riots, wars, insanity, non-identity, hunger, neurosis, disease—none of these things, nor all of them heaped together can budge the fact that I am dearly loved, completely forgiven and forever free through Jesus Christ, your beloved son. ~Ruth Calkins

It occurred to me one day that everything the devil does is designed for one purpose only: to draw us away from God’s love. He does so not because he hates us, but because he hates God and will do anything to break His heart, and nothing breaks God’s heart more than being separated from those He loves.

According to John Milton, the devil is the prowling Wolf,

Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where Shepherds pen their flocks at eve
So climbs this grand thief into God’s fold.

The Bible gives us a vivid picture of this enemy behind all enmity. Jesus described him as a liar and a murderer ( John 8:44). His strategy is to deceive; his objective is to destroy. He is the source of all our doubts about God’s goodness. He is the one behind the deceit that buffets us all day long—the messages that encourage us to find ourselves in something or someone more trustworthy than God; the subtle seductions to meet our needs our way rather than trust our Shepherd’s wise provision. The devil fills us with guilt over the past, denying God’s unfailing forgiveness. He makes us anxious about the present, insinuating that God cannot provide. He exacerbates the final terror of death, ignoring our Lord’s conquest over the tomb.

The marks of Satan’s presence are anxiety, guilt, and fear—all based on the lie that God either will not or cannot do anything about our condition; that our sin, our suffering, our inadequacy, our destiny—all are beyond His control or beyond His care. Satan’s subtle craft is to make us suspicious of God: “He is holding out on you,” he whispers in our ears. That’s the devil’s fundamental deception.

He’s behind the bitterness of some of our questions: Why must little children become drug-dependent in utero? Why are women battered, abused, and then abandoned—discarded like pieces of waste? What of the homosexual’s lonely despair? Does it occur to God that it is hard for us to live with only His invisible presence; that sometimes we long for human arms to give us a hug? Is He aware that His silence deafens us to His Word; that it’s hard to believe He’s still speaking to us today? Can He possibly comprehend the awful pain of our loneliness?

Satan plagues us with these questions and uses them to push us away from God.

We ask, “If God is so loving and kind, why is this?”

Any view of justice seems to demand that life ought to be better than it is, especially for those of us who want God and who are responsive to His love. God should go soft on us and give us the good life. Things should get easier as we get along in years, grow closer to Him, and get more in touch with His heart. For some that certainty is an article of faith, but God doesn’t back up that creed.

We suffer. Painful, frustrating, discouraging, depressing, and costly things keep happening to us. Sorrow upon sorrow is often our lot, and sometimes the hardest parts of the journey are yet further along. All of this may convince us that the world is a very unfair place and leave us with serious doubt as to whether or not God is good.

But one thing we have to say about God: At least He took His own medicine. He subjected Himself to all the indignities and indecencies the world inflicts on us.

Whatever the game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile. ~Dorothy Sayers

We look at our Lord’s life and death here on earth and listen to His words and we say, “Here is one who understands what I’m going through!” He has experienced all of life’s bitterness and heartache. He knows how difficult it is to burn the bridges we’re called to destroy; He understands our inertia and our soul’s resistance to change. He understands the power of sensual attraction. He has felt the disdain of others; He has seen their smirks and amused smiles; He has experienced coldness and the inability of others to understand. He knows. He understands. We can approach Him “with confidence [boldness], so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Doubts come and go, but we need not be dismayed by them. Doubt is not at first a sign that our faith has failed but that it’s being assailed. When doubts come we should counter by reminding ourselves of their source and that what the devil says about God is not true—Satan is a liar. Then we can renew our minds and strengthen our hearts with the truth that God is the God “who does not lie” (Titus 1:2). He is Eternal Good, and He is working for our good.

Taken from Psalm 23: The Song of a Passionate Heart, ©1994 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.