For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
—Psalm 84:11
At first glance, this verse is one of those that we should all make our life verse. Because who doesn’t want a good thing?! According to me, a good thing is
- never-ending snickerdoodle hot chocolates from starbucks
- free sassy t-shirts
- all the pressed flowers in the world
- a pony in my closet (doesn’t matter it wouldn’t fit)
- probably a whole lot of yellow, maps of galaxies, random astronaut helmets, and balloons
So this verse means that God is gonna give me all that, right?!
Eh—
Not quite.
It took me a long time to realize that the “good thing” David is talking about here isn’t defined by us.
It’s defined by God. And what is the ultimate good thing?
Fellowship with the Creator of snickerdoodle hot chocolate, sassy t-shirts, flowers, ponies, yellow, galaxies, astronauts (and their aesthetically pleasing helmets), and balloons (in perhaps an indirect way but you know what I’m saying).
When I first read this verse, I thought I knew what my “good thing” was. When I was denied access to that, I realized that in this season of life, my “good thing” wasn’t that which I’d so tightly held onto. My fingers, aching and splotched with red from holding on so passionately and failing to take care of anything else, could now be lifted in praise to the God who was TRULY my good thing.
So, what is YOUR good thing right now?
- that test you failed . . . because it drew you closer to God
- that school you didn’t get into . . . because God has plans for you at another school
- that money you lost . . . because God is going to provide
- that seemingly unconquerable, breathtakingly hard, tear-jerking, never-ending TRIAL that just keeps coming . . . that’s a good thing because God is using it to make you a Warrior.
You know how, when your room gets insanely messy (oh whoops that’s just me?), you first have to tear it apart to get it back to clean? You have to pull out all the junk papers from every drawer, get all the “filth” and unwanted trash out into the open so you can deal with it.
From there, you can allot papers their spot in the trash can or memory box; throw out all the gum wrappers and ink-less pens; bring random books back to their domicile with other like-minded literature.
The problem is, we’ve gone and defined what a “good thing” is. It’s not a messy bedroom, because all good Christians are spotless . . . right? Everything is in it’s place. There’s no trash or junk (at least that’s visible).
But, to God, good isn’t always comfortable. It isn’t always pristine. And it certainly isn’t a facade of cleanliness. It may be very uncomfortable. It may be a situation we never would’ve signed up to attend. It may be a person we never would’ve chosen to deal with. It may be a whole host of things that the world arbitrarily has assigned the title “BAD THING” to.
So—what do we do?
It’s time to redefine what a “good thing” is. It’s time to search the Scriptures, to take on not rose-colored glasses, but God-colored glasses, to truly see what make a thing good or bad.
What do you think makes something truly “good” versus “bad”? What about from a human standpoint?
