Our Greatest Good (part 1)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

"I will say to the LORD..."apart from you I have no good thing."

As I grew up, my parents taught me a simple prayer to say before our meals: “God is good, God is great and we thank you for our food. Amen.”  It was a child’s prayer to express thanks for our bountiful meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans or whatever else we might have.  We prayed and then ate, perhaps not realizing the true hidden bounty in the prayer that God IS good and our meal was only a fraction of his goodness to us.

In the first part of this verse, David declares God as his Lord or Master.  His attitude about God as his Master is not one of an embittered, remorseful, regretful, spiteful or hateful attitude that only obeys him because he must.  Quite the contrary! David declares to God, “Apart from you I have no good thing” or “I have no good apart from you.”  It is very profound.  In other words, God is not only the Giver of all good things (c.f. James 1:17) but he is our greatest Good.  There is no higher good than God in our lives.

The Lord is good and the Source of all good things.  But what does it mean that God is good and that he is our greatest Good? 

1) God is our greatest good because he is good.  His character, the essence of his Being is good and not evil.  Therefore he is not some monster bent to destroy people on a maniacal whim or some Roman pagan god with a twisted view of pleasure.  No!  Instead, he is good. 

What does this look like in God’s character?  In Exodus 33 Moses asks the Lord, “Show me your glory” or to rephrase it, “Show me what makes you so great!” The Lord replies, “I will cause all my GOODNESS to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.” 

In Exodus 34 the Lord passed in front of Moses and proclaimed his name:

“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.  Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and forth generation.” 

This is God’s goodness.  It is wrapped up and woven together with his grace, compassion, patience, love, faithfulness, forgiveness and justice.  All of these character attributes flow from the ‘all my goodness’ God told about that passed in front of Moses.

We see all of these at work throughout the Bible.  God’s goodness shines through his compassion in Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”  The Lord sends his rain to water the crops of the good and the evil people so that they will grow and produce food for them.  He provides jobs, shelter, food and clothes for both because of his compassion (c.f. Matthew 5:45; Acts 14:17).  His patience shines through as he waits for the wicked to repent (2 Peter 3:9).  

Out of his goodness he forgives and instructs wrongdoers in his ways (Psalm 25:7-8), he satisfies his creation with good things (Psalm 104:28) and becomes a refuge and caretaker for those in trouble (Nahum 1:7). 

In Psalm 136 the author praises God: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.  His love endures forever.”  The rest of the Psalm declares God’s goodness and enduring love through his acts of creation, the deliverance from an oppressive government and the conquest and judgment on wicked nations (God’s justice). 

God is good!