Something Good

"Like that pie, He isn't stopped by our mistakes in making of us something good."

I BAKED A LEMON MERINGUE PIE ONCE, and the filling was like water. Somewhere in the mixing and cooking, I’d made a mistake. There was no saving the pie, although we did eat it and it tasted fine. I’ve never made one since. God is only good. There’s nothing but goodness in Him, and He pours it out on us in abundance. But like that pie, though He was given a lot of messed up people, people with sinful hearts and diseased bodies and tormented minds, proud people, liars, the possessed and oppressed, people of all statures and places in life, He isn’t stopped by our mistakes in making of us something good.

And He INTENDS to make something good.

He doesn’t settle for the broken pieces, but can create from scattered bones, a whole new man. From the dead, He can give life. He CAN do it, and He DELIGHTS to do it. In His goodness, we find mercy unending and great compassion. We find healing. Wholeness.

We aren’t a basket of used crayons, none of which are in good shape, that we must “make do” with, but instead, that from the ends of yellows and greens and blues, He creates a brand new box. We are the ones who settle for the temporary. We set our heart on “putting up with” the problems, when God desires to remove it and make of what was a few fish and loaves that belonged to a boy, enough to feed 5,000. With leftovers.

He uses us to do it. That day, He asked the disciples to feed the people, and they questioned Him. “We don’t have enough money,” they said. But Jesus didn’t need money. He needed willingness. He needed faith in who He was. There was the Christ, the very Presence of God which had healed the barrenness of a 100-year-old man named Abraham and made a nation. Who had healed countless people underneath their gazes, the lame and blind, the lepers. Jesus was not limited by the boy’s lunch but from it would show how great God’s goodness really was. That was the point.

And from us, He asks partnership to enable Him to spread His goodness. Romans 8:28 in the Amplified Classic puts it this way: “We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.” This verse is so often misunderstood, but it is that when we pray, when we put faith to our words and actions, God will take what is a watery pie and make it into something wonderful. Something good.

There is no evil in Him, so He can’t give any evil to anyone. Nor is He tempted to do so. His goodness is simply too beautiful, too perfect and full of grace. His grace enables us to do whatever He asks of us, and His goodness backs it up. It is the rock we stand on, as firm and stable and fixed a foundation as can ever be built. In Him, there is nothing lacking. We need never do without, as it says in the psalm.

That is His heart. That is His character, and in His salvation, He has poured all of who He is into us. He is good, so we are good, and we do good things, made perfect, without any want, or any flaw. It doesn’t matter what we were, what damage we’ve sustained. We focus not on the mistakes, not on the dents and dings, the missing pieces, but that our loving God will repair it all, better than it was or ever could be.

“Everything good, healthy and beneficial originates in heaven and comes down from the Father who created the universe. He is always good and will never alter his methods of love. He does not waver, and he is certainly not the source of darkness and death! (18) He is the source of life, and he chose to give us new life through Jesus—the true expression of God—that we might be the masterpieces of all his creation.” (James 1:17-18 Remedy)

Pie Image by Didier from Pixabay
Notepaper Image by Willfried Wende from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com