Can God Get Hidden In Good?

This morning, I got thinking about the words GOOD and GOD and how close they are in how they are spelt. It was quite a random thought, which is how I knew that I needed to lean into the thought further.

To begin, I don’t believe it is coincidence. I believe that the Lord is intentional about every detail in our lives, even the spelling of these two words. I also believe that he pointed this out to me this morning to teach me something deeper, and that teaching was this: God can easily get hidden in Good.

Now, that may sound conflicting as we often associate the words God and Good as going together. Often we hear things like “God is good” or “God uses everything for good.” And, there are many, many scriptures that speak of God’s goodness. To be clear, I am not saying that God is not good. What I AM saying is that God is not always seen, recognized or given glory when there is good present.

In my life, I have found that I tend to turn to God or grow in my relationship with him more, when I am struggling. And while that has helped me in my struggles, I have discovered that God has often been hidden, and my relationship with him hindered, in the good times. And, this was not of his doing, but my own doing.

If I take a look at my life, I am grateful to be able to say that I have been blessed with many good things; my husband, my kids, my family and friends, my health, my jobs, my home, vacations, THIS MINISTRY, and the list goes on. And, I challenge those of you who are reading this to do the same. What has also been pointed out to me through the years and while I write this, is that those good things have often taken the place of or been of higher importance to me than God himself. What do I mean by that? I’ll give you an example.

I am a mom and a wife, and I love my husband and children very, very much. I know that they are a gift to me from God, but often the energy that I put towards trying to keep them happy and healthy, or even looking to them to make me happy, is greater than the energy I put towards my relationship with God. When I do that many unpleasant things result; such as, sitting in what many of you know as “mom guilt” or blaming myself for common mistakes or behaviors that kids just choose to make sometimes. This mentality also causes me to have unrealistic expectations for Jeff and the kids. There was a time in our lives where I leaned so heavily on Jeff, that it’s almost like I was looking to him to be my God. I needed him to make me feel safe or secure, or I’d look at the health of our relationship to gauge how “well we were doing.” It can be really easy to do this because we are taught that God wants us to prioritize our marriage and our family and that tending to and caring for them is a GOOD thing. And it IS. But, it cannot be our GOD thing.

There is a scripture from James 1:17 that says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above.” And that, I believe, is the key to remember with every good thing in our lives. ALL that we are blessed with is from GOD. The sky doesn’t just paint a beautiful sunrise or sunset, the creator of the sky does! A gardener may prepare the soil and plant the seeds, but he or she doesn’t control the sun and rain to make the flowers grow and bloom so beautifully, God does!

So when we are experiencing good in our lives, we need to remember to stop and give thanks and glory to the one who is responsible for the good! We need to train ourselves not to hyper focus or obsess over the gift, instead focus on the gift giver! Think about how wonderful it is when you witness someone, especially a child, open a present and instantly look at the person who gave it to them with excitement, joy and a big “thank you!” Are they excited about the gift and excited to enjoy it? Yes! Absolutely! But, what they are showing by their response to the gift, is that they understand that it was GIVEN to them by someone who loves them and wants to bring them joy. And THAT is what our Heavenly Father wants our response to be.

God wants to give us gifts, and he wants us to openly receive them. He wants us to experience good. But, he doesn’t want to be forgot about admist the good. God is described as a jealous God many times in The Bible. God is jealous when people worship, serve or even think about anything more than him. Even if they are “good” things. And, he isn’t jealous out of envy or spite or anger, he is jealous out of LOVE. You see, God also knows that every gift given, can also be taken away, EXCEPT for the greatest gift of all. And that is our faith in him and Christ Jesus. And that is why he doesn’t want ANYONE OR ANYTHING to come before him.

We have all experienced loss in our lives. Whether it be a loss of a loved one, a job, a home, or maybe even a favorite sweatshirt! Loss is inevitable. And it is not fun. Everyone and everything given to us in this life is temporary, but his love goes on FOREVER. So why wouldn’t we give him first place?

There is a lot of truth behind the saying “too much of a good thing is a bad thing.” And, I believe that applies to everything except for God.

So how do we practically live this out in our every day lives? The solution is simple, and you can start practicing today. Give God thanks, praise and glory for EVERYTHING in your life. He deserves it!