Often as believers we get fixated on praying for our hearts desires, when in reality… He already knows them. Looking back through the years before we purchased our dream home, I realized that most of my prayers were for a home.
” Lord, if you just give me a house my life will be much better.”
” Jesus, how much longer do we have to rent? I’m so tired of paying for a home I don’t even like.”
Although no prayers are wasted, and we should never regret our prayer life with Him, I do see now that everything in our lives that’s FROM HIM, that’s GOOD.. is always on His watch. Not ours.
You see, instead of focusing on his character, and His goodness, I was ASKING Him to be good to me.
I have really honestly laughed at myself these past few weeks, for numerous reasons ( being that I can be a total bonehead ) but mostly that it took me almost 28 years to learn that God is good. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a Christian since I was three years old. I’ve been in church all my life, and been in a relationship with Him since I was very young. I’ve always heard his voice, and seen into the spirit realm. I’ve tithed, and I’ve worshiped, and fallen out in the spirit . I’ve gone to conferences that have changed my life and challenged me into greatness. I even wrote a book about His goodness to my family.
But it has not been until the past few weeks that I KNOW that I KNOW that I KNOW that He is a good Father.
Why? Is it because I’m finally in my Farm house I’ve been praying for since I was a child?
No.
It is because I can finally believe the words that come out of my mouth when I say that He is GOOD. His goodness doesn’t get better as my life gets better. He is the same in every Season of my life. I don’t have more joy because my life is going well. I don’t have more joy because I have a big house. I have joy because I have finally figured out that HIS JOY isn’t fickle .
THINGS, people, and places cannot bring us true happiness. We can try , and believe me I did. I reached higher and higher trying to please Him more. Trying, and eventually exhausting my spirit trying to gain my OWN joy. An artificial joy that I claimed was from Him only.
You know how I know it was never His joy? Because I only felt in when life was just right. When all my ducks were in a row, and my house was clean, and all my children’s butts didn’t need to be cleaned, and every Goldfish crumb off the floor was either eaten or swept up.
GODS JOY ISN’T FICKLE.
It is constant. It’s constant in the hardest days. It was constant when we lost another baby to a miscarriage this year. It was constant during the loan process of our house. It’s constant during the nights where bedtime is a surprise to our children.
Our own happiness is never constant, because without His spirit absolutely nothing is. But when we learn that He is good through the storms and at the parties, we can truly have peace in our spirit.
I’m thankful that our children are healthy, my marriage is loving , and that we are in a home that our children will grow up in, and make many happy memories. I’m thankful that He DID give us our hearts desires, but that is not why He is good. That’s not why I think He is good.
He’s good because HE IS.
Thankfulness and Joy are two different things. We can as humans be thankful for anything. But Joy, true Joy only comes from His spirit radiating and taking over ours.
We cannot base our thoughts about our Father being good off the circumstances of our lives. If we do, we are missing it. We are missing it all.
