All along… Psalm 145:9

Recently, while listening to Dante Bowe sing, The Goodness of God, the Holy Spirit got hold of me; opening the eyes of my understanding, He stretched me. Drawing me in, I was given a peek, just some small glimpse, of what God’s goodness meant—has looked like, in my life. I was wrecked and repenting by the time He was finished showing me, yet I was left hungry for so much more. I had tasted, and it was good! I knew this was no one-time revelation, no amuse-bouche’. Rather, it is a fine dining experience. A multi-course meal whose unique, rich, layered, subtle textures and flavors will have me revisiting this experience of God’s Goodness, over and over and over again…

The Holy Spirit took me back to specific days and seasons in my life; revisiting very specific sins. I was able to see glimpses of myself in the thick of it—covered in my filth, yet seemingly not carrying. Selfish. Oblivious to anything other than what I wanted or needed to make me happy or feel satisfied, at that moment. I saw the bars and the many men and the lies and the sex. The sneaking around. The adultery. The hurt I’d caused my parents and later, my children, friends, and family. I saw my filth stream before my eyes like some twisted, lust-filled, foul-mouthed, underground movie. I saw myself stealing, hustling, getting high, watching porn. I saw when I was molested as a child. I saw my depression, my wanting to die, my neglect. And then I felt the weight of my wretchedness; instantly.

I understood the Holy Spirit wasn’t condemning me, He’s already forgiven me. Rather, He was allowing me to feel the weight of that disgusting filthiness once again that I might be stretched, opened up in some new way, to drink in this heightened, vivid, understanding of just how good and loving and kind and merciful, how patient and long-suffering this God, my Jesus, is. Not that over-used, over-worked, knee-jerk, ‘God is good’ kind of goodness, rather His pure, life-changing, transformative, loving, goodness. The very goodness that caused Him to hold tight His Cross willingly lay down upon it, then allow those He was offering His very life for, to drive their sin through His Perfect flesh. That kind of Goodness…

A Goodness that is far too big, and deep, and wide, for my puny, finite mind, thoughts, and feelings, to fully take in! God had seen each of my sins. And still, after seeing them all, He came to me, personally. He came in a way like no one in my life had ever come; in the gentlest of ways, as softly as the softest of summer breezes. He was just, there. Suddenly. I can close my eyes and go back to that moment, it’s so alive and vivid still; I can feel His nearness as deeply now, more actually, as I did then. And, from that moment until today, I am His and He is mine.

I’ve experienced the goodness of God that Dante was singing about in my own life, without a doubt. I too have sung of the goodness of God. Read about it in the Scriptures, certainly. I’ve witnessed to folks about His goodness. Posted and shared quotes and pics extolling that goodness on social media sites; sharing it personally with new believers. Yet, I had never stopped long enough to truly dig down into the depth of just how far back His goodness had been active in my life; just how far back it truly reached. In that moment, by the revelation of The Holy Spirit, I saw, more, I felt and understood in a new way, just how far back His goodness reached. It went Ephesians 1:4 back, Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:13-18 back, to mention just a few examples. It went standing over the void back…

I’ve taken many cursory glances at this reality over the years, mind you. But in truth, never really sat alone with the thought of His goodness and what it meant in my life—all of my life, giving it the time it so richly deserves. I never knew it in my bones, felt the reality of it churning around in the very depths of me until that moment when the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to all of what God had watched me do in my life. All those days and nights and instances I thought I was being so slick. When I thought I was being so careful, so clever. When I felt the darkness of some strange room was all the hiding place I’d ever need; my sins were safe there, hidden.

Friends and brothers and sisters, I’m not here today sharing my dirt with you for any reason other than to be transparent and to encourage that one who may be here now; feeling as filthy dirty as I was then, would be still, had it not been for the Goodness and love and mercy of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am here today to share with you the wonder and the beauty and the Awesomeness of God. Of exactly what He can and will do in the life of the one He grabs hold of. I say He grabs hold of because I had nothing to do with that. I surely didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t praying for it, honestly. God hadn’t even been a thought that had crossed my mind in any real way—until He did. Until that ‘suddenly’ moment when, in hindsight, I now understand was the Holy Spirit giving me the desire to go to a particular church at a specific time. And I went. I followed that ‘feeling’. And right there, in that Catholic Church, in the midst of the priest’s sermon, The Holy Spirit came for me. And, as I said earlier, He came as softly and gently as the softest of summer breezes. There were no beams of light streaming through the stained-glass windows, no choir of angelic voices singing holy songs, just a deep, the very pit of me deep, and oh so subtle, shift inside. And from that moment, sitting in that Church with my then lover at my side, unashamedly languishing in the pit of my adultery, the Goodness of God has kept one such as me. John 10:27-29…

Friends, I am not here today to point you towards something I’ve read or heard tell of. Something that’s been sung about or shared. I’m not here to regurgitate someone else’s story of how they met this God who offers us—all of us, this goodness we must experience for ourselves. I’m here because I know Him, love Him, have been afforded the privilege of serving Him. I’m here to point us each towards the only one that can and has and will always, until the very last, pour this fresh clean water of His goodness and His love, His unfathomable capacity to forgive us—over us. The One who loves us too much to leave us where we are—whether we’ve known Him for years and years or have just met Him today—or will meet Him soon, I pray. I’m here today to share with you that this Good God has so much more for you and me. He is troubling the water, stirring up something inside of you. Step in and be made whole. Be restored, made clean. Be refreshed.

Brother’s and sister’s and friends let us not settle for the common. For swimming in the shallow end because we can manage that nicely on our own. Cry out to God to rid us of our preconceived notions and ideas of who we believe Him to be and ask Him instead to show Himself to us afresh, new. Let us cry out to God right now in repentance, for mercy, and for more of Him. May He draw us each into an ever deeper and wider, a more pure and True understanding of who He is—and of ourselves, in Him, as He intended us to be and live and share and give and love and serve each other —Psalm 145:5-7.

Friend, if your reading this today and can relate. If you’ve not yet asked this Good God that I’ve spoken of today to be your God, come into your life and change it as surely as He has changed mine—and so many countless others like us; ask Him now. Don’t wait another day, please. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matthew 7:11.