20My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:22The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (3:20-24)

Great is His faithfulness, therefore I have hope.

Of late I have been pondering why I struggle so much with fear and doubting God’s goodness. There are those who seem so assured of His goodness and love, those who have a deeper joy, peace and steadfastness than I. Is it that their life has less trail and more blessings? Is it that God has been more faithful to them? No, indeed not.

The well-worn aphorism “Is the cup half full or half empty?” endures for its potent accuracy. It seems that God has put just enough good and just enough bad in the world that, pardon my post-modern sounding language, that we can choose our reality. We can look upon the bad and see God as capricious, fickle, cruel and unfaithful or we can by faith look upon the good and see His kindness, love and faithfulness.

Because good will when out and all ills be turned for good in the end to those who do place their faith in the Good God of Chirst Jesus, the objective truth of the matter is that God is indeed faithful and good. God is not the substantive source of the bad and He will overturn it for good in the end. However, He has allowed just enough of it that while on this side of life we must live by faith, choosing to see Him, by grace, and choosing to trust Him.

All the “secular” talk, if you will, about “positive energy” and “positive thinking” touches upon this truth and so it captures the faith of people, yet it lacks a foundation to rest upon and so proves a floating, unstable, vague hope easily manipulated by sinful people. But there is a sure foundation for hope, for “positive thinking”, for willing the good in the face of great sorrow and trial; that foundation is Chirst. Great is His faithfulness. When I look back in my life, I see that it is so. He has taken all the ill and turned it for good. When I look foreward in life, He has in His good purposes and wisdom made it so that I must trust by faith that it will again prove to be so. Lord, help me with my unbelief.

Note - I really don’t have time to edit my posts, so gentle indications of mis-spellings and other errors are welcome! Thank you for grace in reading!