“God IS Good” is a declaration that is stated and sung by those of us who have responded in faith to the invitation from Our Lord Jesus Christ to exchange our life for His.

For some of us, the statement is easily reflected by our life circumstances; our health, our wealth, our relationships and our dreams.

For others of us, in order for the statement to have validity, we need to reach into our faith conviction and say, even though this doesn’t feel good today, I choose to believe that God is good.

Finding a promise in scripture and following through on the prerequisites for that promise to be claimed can produce either joy or sadness. When we are surrounded by other believers, we look forward to sharing our joy and that which led up to the experience. It is not as easy to share our disappointments.

Probably the most difficult exchange happens in the depths of our own soul. Even while reading scripture, our common enemy (who knows scripture well) can whisper, “If that is true about God, why did He do nothing when you were desperate?”

We quickly say, “Well, our thoughts are not His thoughts” and we know that is true but it doesn’t answer the nagging doubt that even though God is generally good, He can and does miss some chances to prove it.

Because this is my confession, of which I am not proud, I was deeply impacted this morning by Amy Carmichael’s treatment of Psalm 31:19 from “Edges of His Ways” where she uses Rotherham’s translation: “How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast hidden away for them that revere Thee?”

What if, in the spaces where God’s goodness is indiscernible, He is saving it as a surprise, as Amy puts it “a surprise of love?”

Wanting to check this out for myself, I looked up the verse in the old KJV and read “Oh, how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee”.

I then went to Strong’s and found the original meaning of the word translated “laid up” in the English language. I was comforted to see one of the choices to be “to hide, hide from discovery”.

Because, at my core, I trust that God is good, I am waiting with great expectation for Him to reveal the goodness that He has hidden from me. I celebrate today because I am convinced He is good.

I even believe that the “good” I will eventually embrace will be better because I am trusting Him while I wait.