Some of you may keep up with Bethel’s new release’s. For those of you that don’t they recently released a new album. There are a few songs on there that are perfect for scream worshipping in your car or room. That’s one of my personal favorite kinds. If I can yell out some truths over myself I’m all about it. Because sometimes that’s what it takes for them to begin to sink in. I highly recommend. Also would highly recommend a good dance-it-off song as I like to call them. Where you can close the door to your room and while you are yelling your truths, you can freely worship with your body and no one can think you are a bad dancer. And for me, it feels like weights fall off me every time.
But that’s just my tidbit on some good power kinds of worship songs to declare your soul into praise. They’re just some of my go-to’s because I’m just a passionate person.
One of the songs on the album is called “Goodness of God.” It is not dance-it-off song. And honestly, the first time I heard it, I got annoyed and skipped it. Because I thought it was “more laid back” and “I could sing the other songs at the top of my lungs better” and “I just wasn’t feeling it.” Lol. I thought.
I say that a lot about worship songs when I know they are true but I really don’t want to hear the truth or I am not sure how much I believe it for myself in that moment. Because I do take worship seriously. I don’t want to sing something that I don’t believe, even if it is just me in my car. I am still singing before the Lord. So sometimes I let the song play and wrestle with it in my spirit without singing until I know I need to start declaring truth over myself.
And sometimes, I just skip it.
Because I don’t want to wrestle that day. Because I am still very human and like to lean on the feelings of songs when my heart hurts. Because I am tired of hard.
Which is what I did that day. Because it wasn’t that I didn’t believe the Lord was good. I do. I have fought to continue to believe that throughout the different seasons of my life. But the key word is fought. I have had to often fight against my circumstances and emotions to believe it.And in that moment, I was kind of tired of fighting. And I felt let down by the Lord. So I did not engage in His goodness and I didn’t let truth pour over me.
But now we’ve moved forwards a little bit and I do listen to the song. It’s actually one of the songs the Lord keeps bringing to the forefront of my spirit. Because God IS good. I believe He is good. And I will always fight against what I see right in front of me to see what the Lord has done and where is taking me. So that’s where we are. Engaging in the battle of seeing what the Lord is doing even though the current circumstances are not really my favorite.
One of the things that I love about this song is how it just reflects on the constant goodness and faithfulness of God. That His goodness has been a constant throughout our entire life. It is something that has never once failed.
If you know much about me, you may have heard that Psalms is one of my favorite books. They speak often into the depths of my own heart as the writers wrestle with some of the hardest emotions that come up as we walk through the good and the bad of life. And yet, they never falter to say that God is still good and in control.
One of the more well-known verses of the Psalms is Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man that takes refuge in Him!” Man, I love those verbs. Because we can physically taste and see. It doesn’t say feel. Because we don’t always feel that the Lord is good. Our emotions are quick to lead us astray. So that isn’t what we are told.
I think so often when something goes wrong in our life we are quicker to look at all of the other ways that God has not allowed things to go our way than the ways He has provided. And through that we miss how He may be providing even in whatever the current circumstances that we don’t want or are painful look like. We are not choosing to taste or see the ways that He has indeed been good to us.
It’s a lot easier to see God when we look for Him. Which like sounds obvious, but how often are we looking for the ways that He has “failed” us rather than been faithful to us?
That’s one of the reasons I won’t sing the word “yet” in the song “Do It Again” by Elevation. I love that song. It has reminded me of truth through really hard waiting. But I also know that my flesh has been quick to feel let down by the Lord because of my circumstances. So I just sing “You’ve never failed me” and leave off the “yet” because I have to guard my own heart.
One of my favorite verses is Psalm 27:13. “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” To me it’s the reminder that even when we feel overwhelmed by circumstances, the goodness of the Lord is still present. Even if we cannot see it, it is still there. In those moments when we are trying to taste and see and we don’t see God’s goodness in that moment, we have already been promised a few chapters before that we will see it.
We are told in Matthew 7:7-8 to seek and we shall find. Sometimes we have to seek through our circumstances and our emotions to find God’s goodness has never left and never changed.
You know what I found the more I listened to the “Goodness of God”? I did end up yelling it at the top of my lungs. Because this has not been a season where I FEEL like God’s goodness is running after me. But He never said I was always going to be able to FEEL it, He said I would SEE it. So I have outright declared that truth over my life in order to have life. FULLY recommend. Sometimes people in other cars give you weird looks. It’s cool.
I don’t know what your life has looked like or looks like right now. Maybe you need a reminder of the goodness of God or maybe you will in the future. We all need one at some point. I do know that His goodness is a constant. Sometimes we have to pause and look back over our life to see how far He’s carried us…or maybe see how much we have tried to do on our own. But even then He is still good to welcome us back.
Also here’s the link for the song if anyone wants a quick reference:
Deep Diving 