By Ellie Mullins

Daaaang guys. I got the reminder that my monthly devotional was due and I honestly had to sort through what to talk about because the man upstairs has been WORKING.

He has done so much in my heart this month but I definitely think that today I am supposed to talk about the thing that I’ve never really accepted as truth but that the Father has been showing me that he is capable of: goodness.

I wrote this poem in August of last year:

I know that He’s good.

But just how much?

I know that He cares.

But just how much?

I know that He’s involved.

But just how much?

Yet I know that He knows.

And He knows all.

You might be saying, “Ellie, what? You are a Christian. You should believe that God is good.” But honestly for the last 2 years of my life, at least, I have not believed that truth. Typing this makes me feel like a phony because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve joined in the good ol’ Christian catchphrase, “God is good all the time and all the time God is good.” Literally this is something that is engrained in the Christian story and something that is foundational to the faith I claim but I have a very hard time accepting it as truth.

For Christmas, my best friend gave me the book Remember God by Annie F. Downs. At first I thought it was a nice gift and all but then I opened the pages and realized that it was a book about accepting the goodness of our God… Well dang. I recognized that by opening this book I would have to set down my pride and deal with this broken part in me. Begrudgingly, I started
reading. Through Annie’s words, she pointed out in me that when we think God is not good to us, we are measuring him by our standard of goodness which is usually laden with selfish desires and fleshly wants that are not according to His spirit. Okay Annie, how you gonna call me out
like that?

Fast-forward to last week when I went to a Bethel Music worship night. There were some things that I was praying for, honestly almost demanding for, out of my idea of God’s goodness;

I was begging for Him to be good to me the way that I wanted Him to be. I had been praying the
scripture of Matthew 7:7-11 about a Father that gives good gifts. I was specifically praying over
verse 9 which says, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?” I
was in tears pleading with God to give me the bread instead of a stone.

I immediately was filled with the realization that my Father has been trying to give me
the bread all along, but in my human nature, I have always just grabbed the stone. I haven’t
waited for His bread, I haven’t waited for His goodness. Then God reminded me of the countless
times that He has shown His goodness to me by knocking the stone out of my hand in order to
protect me from my own self. He has always wanted to be good and give me bread instead of a
stone but I’ve never been patient enough to wait for it.

I want to encourage all of you today that GOD WANTS TO GIVE YOU BREAD and I ain’t talking gluten free cardboard either. He wants to give us that fresh sourdough with all the grains. He wants to be good to us…sometimes we just have to wait for it. So sis, stop picking up
the stones.

“It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”- C.S. Lewis