God is good

I've found myself uttering these 3 words a lot lately -- "God is good".

We both walked away from a car accident - God is good.
Car is drivable - God is good.
Lots of work for our business - God is good.
Babies were born - God is good.
Tornadoes were avoided - God is good.
House and cars are safe from hail - God is good.

And while true, God IS good, these 3 words are not actually what I want to say. What I mean to say is "this is good for me", "this is comfortable", "this makes things easy for me", "this is what I wanted to happen", "this makes me feel good". It just sounds nice and spiritual to say it all the first way.

So it's time to stop saying "God is good" - not because it isn't true - but because it is dangerous to keep using it in this context. It leads one to interpret that BECAUSE this good thing happened the way I want it to be, I believe that God is good. And this, my friends, is a dangerous spiritual spiral. Because then when bad things happen, I will have conditioned myself to think that He is not good.

When the truth is -
when my vertebrae go back to their painful place - God is still good.
when we have no car - God is still good.
when there is no work - God is still good.
when babies die - God is still good.
when natural disasters strike those we love - God is still good.
when hail destroys material (and expensive) things - God is still good.

So I will stop saying that God is good just because something occurred as I had hoped.

I will choose to say "God is merciful" because that reminds me of my place with a Holy, Powerful, All-Seeing God and that I am spared unfortunate things only by His mercy.