The Goodness of God
“You are good and what you do is good.”
Psalm 119:68 (NIV)
I grew up in a family that prayed daily before each meal. My Dad usually worked the evening shift and missed our family’s dinner. As early as I can remember, Mama taught my brother, sister, and me a simple child’s prayer that was probably recited around a lot of family tables in the 1960s.
God is great, God is good
Let us thank him for our food
By his hand we all are fed
Give us Lord our daily bread.
I honestly hadn’t thought of that humble child’s prayer in years, but last week as Father’s Day approached, I remembered it. I am so very grateful for parents who taught me to pray and instilled the habit of prayer around our daily meals even as we often hurriedly recited the words prior to wolfing down our food! Last week upon reflection, I realized just how theologically rich those four little lines really are.
Consider the poem’s first two words: “God is.” They attest to the true reality that God exists; He IS. God affirms his existence with the opening words of Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God…”and reveals His covenant family name-“I AM”- to Moses in Exodus 3:14.
By adding the word “great” to the truth of God’s existence, we affirm God’s greatness, power, majesty, and otherness. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:9), and the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9). He is above all and over all. No other god is like our God (Deuteronomy 4:9). God is great (Job 36:26).
But God isn’t just great, God is also good. The Psalmist declares God’s goodness with his words, “You are good and what you do is good”(Psalm 119:68). Goodness is an essential part of God’s overall character and one of the main reasons we can trust him even in the midst of trials and suffering (Romans 8:28).
“Let us thank him for our food” is a corporate call for thanksgiving to God in gratitude for what He has given and done. In his common grace, God extends his kindness and bountiful gifts to each one of us. The Apostle Paul speaking to the crowd in Lystra noted, “He (God) has shown his kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17). We give thanks for God’s generous provision of food that nourishes and sustains our lives.
The words “by his hand” recognize God’s providence and provision and are an acknowledgement that all that we have is a gift of God’s grace.
“Give us Lord our daily bread “ is a petition that echoes Jesus’ words in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:11). These words remind us of God’s miraculous manna provision for the Israelites during their forty-year wilderness journey.
That simple four-line child’s blessing established an early foundation for remembering God’s greatness and goodness.
Everyone processes grief differently. When James Bruce died in 2022 and my grief was at its peak, I spent a lot of time cooking even though people were still bringing plenty of food. I needed to keep my hands busy even as my heart ached. Two songs, Jen Johnson’s The Goodness of God and Matt Boswell’s Christ our Hope in Life and Death, stayed on replay in my kitchen as I baked and cried. Both songs brought comfort and helped me to stay focused, not on what we had lost, but on God’s goodness and our hope in Christ.
God in His goodness gave us the gift of James Bruce and God in His goodness called him home.
My dear friend Laura Black’s last words to me just four days before she died from cancer in 2012 have also echoed repeatedly in my heart over the past two years. Laura, a young mom with three small children firmly declared, “Donna, no matter what happens, God is always good, and we are always loved.”
Laura’s words comforted me when she died, and they have comforted me countless times since. God is always good, and we are always loved whether we are eating a meal, facing a dire diagnosis, parenting a special needs child, or grieving a loss. Our circumstances may not always feel good, but our God is always good.
“Learn your doctrine in peacetime so you can deploy it in war. When you know who God is, you can trust him for what he does.” (Tim Challies)
God is great; God is good!