God is Great, God is Good!

A lot has happen since the last time I posted on my blog; one being, the birth of our baby girl, Hannah Elizabeth. Though I am not getting much sleep at night, to hold her and gaze into her eyes has been far more rewarding than sleep. I have decided when she wakes for her 4:30AM feeding, to remain up and spend a few hours in prayer and meditation.

Tim Keller, in his latest book called, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, talks about how one of the greatest ways to grow in your prayer life is by reading the Psalms, because they are prayers to God. As a result, I have been doing this over the last few weeks and it has definitely helped strengthen the quality of my prayer time. This morning one of the Psalms I read was Psalm 31. You may remember, this is the Psalm that Jesus quoted in His most difficult time of trouble and sorrow... "(Father) Into your hands I commit my spirit." If the son of God Himself found this prayer to be the consummate expression of his heart's desire for rest in the hands of his father, could we find any more  adequate expression for our own?

David says in the 19th verse, "How GREAT is your GOODNESS, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you." 

Immediately, after reading verse 19, I was reminded of the beginning of a simple yet profound prayer we teach our three year old son to pray, "God is GREAT, God is GOOD..." It is easy for me (and I would assume you as well) to skip over this communicable attribute of God or view the word "Good" as a generic concept. However, this morning I am reminded (In the words of Berkhof) that God is in every way all that He as God should be, and therefore answers perfectly to the ideal expressed in the word "God. He is good in the metaphysical sense of the word, absolute perfection and perfect bliss in Himself...He is the foundation of all good, and is so represented in a variety of ways throughout the bible...And not only that, but God is also the summum bonus, the highest good..."

David reminds us in Psalm 31 that not only is God Great and Good, but He stores up His greatness and goodness for those who fear Him, giving it (his greatness and goodness) out freely to those who find refuge in Him.

So I pray, in the words of my three year old son, God is Great, God is Good!