Goodness

“…we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling, and that by His power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith”. – 2 Thessalonians 1:11

When I looked up the word goodness, the definition I got was this: “The state of being good”.  At first I kind of laughed; it told me absolutely nothing. Or so I thought. But when I reflected on it a little longer, I found myself focusing on ‘the state of being’ part. It does not say doing, it says being.

Goodness is a state of being. Our work often traps us into doing stuff all the time. We have timelines, goals, work-plans, deadlines and deliverables. Those are all important things of course, but what about setting aside time to just be. When do we pray? Meditate? Reflect? Listen? Are those things part of our days?

What does it mean to be good? The word good is one of the fruits of the spirit that has an obvious opposite; bad. So, to be good means not being bad. Need more help than that? I thought so.

God is good; we see that reflected all throughout scripture. So to be good is to do our best to be more like God. Since Christians have Jesus as our human example of God, we do our best to be more like Jesus was. He cared for the poor. Healed the sick. Welcomed strangers/refugees. Visited prisoners. Gave sight to the blind. Plus, He took time out of His busyness to be alone to pray.

That’s all good!

Let’s continue to strive to ‘be’ good while we attempt to be ‘The Hand of God in the Heart of the City’.

Peace,

Dion