Things I Like

I like...organic peanut butter ice cream, fluffy pink slippers, beautiful roses in my front yard, a contented husband snoozing on the sofa, and a good friend chatting with me face-to-face.

I like playing the piano and listening to music of almost every variety. I enjoy dove dark chocolate and the bluest of blueberries in the summer; vanilla candles and Burt's Bees grapefruit shampoo; crisp autumn walks in the woods with orange, yellow, and red leaves softly falling.

But what do I love? This is the greater question--the one that shows who I am in a heart-revealing sort of way. This week I realized how much I LOVE the promises of God. Those universal promises in the Bible that are for all those who trust in God through His Son; those flat-out assurances you can take to the bank and cash. True no matter what comes. Always true. As one preacher said, "True this and true that." They are all over the Bible, just waiting to be claimed.

This one I especially love:


Psalm 27:13
I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

Want some context? The psalmist David is constantly fleeing for his life, escaping death narrowly and consistently on the lam. He often feels overwhelmed and even depressed. But he is still confident, friends, that he will see God's goodness. And he won't have to wait until he dies and goes to heaven someday. He will see God's goodness here on the earth. All will be well someday, and he will see how God was taking care of him all along. Oh, yes, he'll see. He knows it for certain even though his current circumstances betray him.

But do we know? Well, we can know, yes. But only if we....

Verse 14:
Wait for the LORD;

be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.


Our timetable is a mess compared to God's perfect calendar. Our passions pull us a million directions, but his peace sustains us and guides us. His grace is greater than our sin and all our screw-ups; his mercies are new every morning. I tried him on this a million times, and I can testify: he's faithful!

So, right now, this morning, I'm thanking and praising him for what he's done and the good he has yet to accomplish. I'm taking this quote by CS Lewis seriously:


"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."
--CS Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

It's time for me to sign off now. God and I are about to have another intimate conversation this morning. And I'm quite certain I'll remember his goodness all over again.