Goodness and Mercy

Psalm 23:6a,  "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

      Surely.  Certainly.  Without a doubt.  You can count on it.  Great is the faithfulness of our God.  We can trust Him with our whole hearts.

      It is easy to see that God's goodness and mercy are following us when all is going well in our lives.  But when there are health problems. financial difficulties, wayward children, tragic events, and the death of someone we love, it is much harder to see God's hand of goodness and mercy, but we can know that it is still there.  He has promised to cause all circumstances to work for our ultimate good.  It is not our circumstances which reveal the extent of God's love for us--it is the cross!  If we only remember one thing about the Christian life, let it be,  "Jesus loves me.  This I know, for the Bible tells me so."  Never doubt God's love and goodness and mercy.

      God's goodness and mercy follow us.  He doesn't just sit in heaven and observe us as we struggle through our days on earth.  He enters into our lives in intimate ways, comforting us, guiding us, encouraging us, answering our prayers--and we can count on Him to do this as long as we live.  He  will never desert us, never leave us to our own devises, never make us depend solely upon our human resources.  He is our Immanuel--God with us.

      I love the way the psalmist summed these thoughts up in Psalm 73:23-24, 26,  "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.....My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

                                                                             

Father, thank You for Your goodness and mercy which follow us as long as we live.  Amen.