Green Pastures Part V, "...goodness and mercy"

Ending my series on the 23^rd Psalm, verse 6 states, “Surely goodness and love (mercy) will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” On earth, it sometimes feels that goodness and love are hard to find, at least in my life. However, we need to keep our focus off of what is going on around us, which is meant to hold us down, and keep our focus on what is good and right in our world, Jesus Christ!

It is so easy to lose sight of the goodness and mercy that God promises will follow me (when I am living for Him). If Satan can keep our eyes on the discouraging circumstances and bad things going on around us in the world these days, we can completely forget God’s goodness and mercy in our lives. Besides staying in God’s Word every day and standing on His promises, we also need to write down a list of all the ways God has shown His goodness in our lives; from His protection, our family, the roof over our head, meals on the table each day, our churches, His provision and even our pets! Just the fact that I can walk, see and hear is God’s goodness and mercy in my life (especially when two and a half years ago, I was having progressive difficulty walking, which God miraculously healed!!) Then when circumstances give us “amnesia” for all of God’s goodness and mercy in our lives, we have a reminder of what God has done for us!

Although the fact is that things are very difficult in this life, we also have the promise that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (heaven). What an amazing promise to look forward to! The memories of this earth will one day be a distant memory. What we do on earth prepares us for the life ahead, and we need to make the most of them! How are we showing others the truth of God’s goodness and mercy? Are we telling others, believers and non-believers, about the goodness and love of God? Are we living an example of that goodness and mercy to others by reaching out to them, loving them and showing them goodness, which is getting more and more rare in our world these days? Let your light shine before men, that they may see and believe in Him and know that there is hope for them too!

We are running the most difficult marathon ever run, called the race of life, that sometimes seems to be never ending. However, when we keep our eyes on the finish line, in which we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, we are encouraged to keep on going towards the finish line. I encourage you to keep running this race, because even though life is very difficult, God is right there with us, following us with His goodness and mercy, even though it may be hard to see sometimes. Even if you have experienced a life similar to mine where it seems like all that follows you is difficulty and more difficulty, take heart knowing that it is not all in vain when you live for Christ! There is a great ending to this story of life…heaven!

As I Corinthians 9:25 says, “Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” Praise God that we will dwell in His house forever!! Who wants to go running with me for the greatest prize ever known?