The wisest man of his time, King Solomon, worked hard to get an amazing temple built to honour God and be a place where people could come and worship Him. On the day of dedication for that temple, King Solomon spoke a prayer in front of the people and, in it, remembered a whole string of events that God had seen and still remained loving towards His people. It reminds me of the "Looking back on 2012" news hour shows or magazine stories we might have seen or read. Many report tragedies that show harsh actions that uncaring people took, and the harm it brought to so many families and communities -- one of the latest in 2012 being the massacre of young children and adults.
“LORD, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. “Now arise, LORD God, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. May your priests, LORD God, be clothed with salvation, may your faithful people rejoice in your goodness. (2 Chronicles 6:14, 41)
Want to know some of the things King Solomon mentioned in his prayer in between these two sentences about covenant love and the people rejoicing in God's goodness? Read through 2 Chronicles 6 for the details but here's the outline. God promised and delivered blessing to those who obeyed Him. What about those who were known to disobey Him? God defeated enemies, sent rain, dealt with famine and plagues and enemies of His people and did it when those problems existed in their lives because of the peoples' sin. Over and over again the people walked away from their loving God. When trouble would come they would get discouraged and wonder how life could be so difficult. They would whine and blame God for what was happening. As a last resort they would turn back to God and ask for forgiveness and blessing.
In the midst of evil and suffering where is God? God is standing with people comforting and loving them even in their darkest moments. God keeps on loving because God is love. God is faithful to all His promises no matter what circumstances we put before Him. God is good whether we choose to live as though He is good or choose to drag our minds around in the mud of our circumstances. We are a messy mixture of good and evil at best, living in a world that is dark and getting darker. We can keep our thoughts on evil and disaster OR we can choose to acknowledge that a good God is with us right now and always. He has promised to never leave or forsake us. We can pray and help those who suffer. We can give our best effort today to try to be aware of God's goodness. We can intentionally choose to remember how God has been good to us. We can then respond to the outpouring of God’s goodness that we have received and grace others as we have been graced.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. (John 1:14, 16 NIV)
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