God is Good, All the Time

At the time you’re an adult I don’t need to know anything about you to know that the person standing in front of me has experienced a great deal of pain. And I may not know what it is. I may never know what it is. But because our brains are designed to look for danger when we see a person in front of us, we’re looking for ways that they could hurt us, just subconsciously your brain is like, Ooh, is this person okay? Could they hurt me?

But I love that Mother Teresa we’ll do a small bowel to everybody that she met and this vow signified that she knew that Christ. That the holy spirit lived inside each person. But God was there. She was bowing to the holy spirit. And when we think of people this way, when we think this person was created by God. Is loved by God. God lives inside of them. And they’ve been through a significant amount of pain. Really changes the way that we see those people and that when we talk about changing our brains here.

This is what is different about Christians, is that we try to override the part of our brain that goes, oh, everybody’s bad, everybody’s dangerous. And we look for God within them, we know that they were created in the image and likeness of God. Now it doesn’t mean that we invite any random stranger that we meet into our house. I’m not saying that we don’t have some level of protection and awareness around our safety.

But the default setting on your brain is to be suspicious and I want the default setting in our brains to be compassionate. Just recently I was reading about the presidential debate that just happened. And I was just reading, I like to read articles and reviews on both sides just to see what everybody said. And just the amount of anger that’s posted in comments on both sides. The amount of anger is just startling and when I read that ,my first thoughts are just, ah, I just want to give all of these people a hug. Everyone has been through so much pain and they are scared. Can you feel that right now? Think about some of the people in your life and the pain that they have been through or going through right now.

And maybe they’re scared of something. How can we pray for them? How can we love them? I can pray for people online that I never meet. I don’t have to go in the comment section and say anything. But I can just lift up a little prayer, like Lord heal their hearts. Heal my heart. I am one of the humans that’s been through a lot of pain. Let us be the ones who bring Christ into every room. Let us look at people with compassion instead of suspicion. Let us pray for people who are angry or sad. I don’t know if I’ve shared this on the podcast, but I shared it in all my talks. I wanted to make sure that I definitely have it on the podcast, but, a friend of mine, she ran a family camp here. And to gather the kids she would say she taught them. When I say, God is good. All you children say all the time. And then she would say all the time and the children would say, God is good. And this was a way for, kind of that camp counselor feeling where you have a cute little chant and then everyone comes to a place and is quiet. The purpose of this was to get everyone’s attention to get them to the campfire and to be quiet. But she, and I also use it with each other when we’re having a hard time.

We will text each other and say, one of us will say, God is good all the time. And the other person will text back. All the time, God is good. And that is our way of saying I’m having a hard day. Some pain in my day and it is the other person’s way of saying, I see you, you’ve got this. God is with you. And I taught this to these rooms of women because in this world we will continue to experience pain.

We know that, we know that there will always be pain. And sometimes your greatest pain is watching someone else be in pain. It’s not even something that’s happening to you. But I love this phrase. God is good all the time. All the time, God is good. And we can see that. We can see it in so many. So many instances in our past, you can look back and go, oh, that thing that I thought was terrible was actually really good.

And there are some crosses and some seasons that are so painful and you don’t see the good that’s going to come out of it. That is where we walk by faith. Where we believe that when we die and we meet Christ and he shows us our life. That he’s going to say Sterling look at that, this thing that was so painful that you didn’t understand. Here’s why I did that. Here’s why you needed that. Here’s why it is good.

And it’s okay to wrestle with that. I don’t flow on a cloud all the time. Going, oh, this must be wonderful. God is so good. I go through phases of being frustrated or bitter or angry or resentful verse, like Lord, why. So, I don’t want you to think that I don’t ever have moments where my, my toddler brain, my primal brain wants to throw a fit about what’s happening. But my hope, my goal is to always get to the place where even if I don’t understand, I think God is good all the time. Let me just tell you that’s a wonderful way to live. It’s a much better way to live than thinking life should be good. Life should be happy and something has gone wrong. And I think this is one of the biggest characteristic differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. Is that we can unite our suffering with Christ. And see that it is powerful. It is redemptive that it can be good. And I’m certainly not at the same head level, um, where I seek out suffering and not all of them did that, but I have read that some of them did. I’m not at that level.

I’m trying to just receive and be okay but the hard things in my life and just go, all right. I don’t know what this is about but I believe that God is good and that he loves me and this is for a reason. And we talk a lot here about receiving the day that God gives us instead of resisting it. When we resist it. And we have thoughts like this shouldn’t be happening, it shouldn’t be this way. That person shouldn’t do that, it not only does it feel terrible? But it’s very exhausting to resist anything to just resist the reality of your life.

But instead we can think this is happening. This is okay and God is good and it takes some practice to do that. But it is, well-worth the practice. You guys. Because you’re going to keep being a human, my friend. And there will be beautiful and wonderful things in your life. There will be such joy, such happiness, such peace. But there will also be crosses and suffering and pain. And all of it is good. So I want you to share this episode with your friends. I want you to share it with your friends. And I want you guys to start texting each other. God is good all the time. And then the other person responds all the time God is good. And that is just our way of saying I am with you. I see you having a difficult day.

But together we’re going to link arms and we’re going to believe that Jesus is who he said he is and that he loves us. And that he is good. This thing that we are dealing with it is good. Good will come out of it. I think so many people are lonely. We don’t have great support systems or communities really. I see, I see people trying to put that back together and that’s really what they were doing in St. Louis. They were really trying to bring women together. It was so beautiful. And I think this is a way that we can do it.

Even when we’re alone in our living rooms or in the pickup line at school. Folding the laundry. We can just reach out to each other and kind of electronically say I’m with you, I love you and God is good. I think that’s a way that we could be the light bringers. That we could bring light to each other. And maybe that is the goodness that comes out of something that you’re going through right now. It leads you to forming deeper relationships and being willing to be more vulnerable and lean on people. It feels good to share your life with other people.

All right my friends. God is good all the time, all the time God is good. Thank you so much for listening. I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. And have a blessed day.