It’s Never Too Late for Life to Be Good

We have a flip calendar at work with Bible verses on it, and yesterday I turned the page to a treasure.

Let’s stop here and talk about our desperate need for encouragement. A couple of weeks ago, Matt took our truck into the shop and got a call saying we needed a $14,000 repair. In the same week, the gas fireplace in our living room stopped working, and it cost us $300 to find out we really need to replace it. This is life, isn’t it? Everyone I know has stories just like this. Our son’s basement flooded in the last rain. A friend is overwhelmed by daycare expenses. A family member has painful neuropathy. Another has cancer. Friends are barely paying the bills. We need encouragement.

I always reach for that flip calendar at work as soon as I get there, the way I sometimes reach for my water bottle at 5:00 in the evening, after I realize I feel parched because I haven’t had a single glass of water yet that day. My soul is thirsty for a word from the Lord that will help me patiently endure my life struggles without freaking out and that will cause me to rejoice in the Lord even when some circumstances give me no reason for joy.

Yesterday I turned the calendar page to Proverbs 11:23:

The desire of the righteous ends only in good, the expectation of the wicked in wrath.

Ice cold water down the dry throat.

All day long, as I called pharmacy patients to let them know their prescriptions were ready and put medications in the mail and entered credit card numbers and checked customers out at the register, I meditated on the truth that Jesus imputed his righteousness to me. Because of him, I am righteous, and Wisdom says the only possible outcome for my desire is good. 

Has there ever been a time when God hasn’t taken care of us? I ask myself, when my stomach churns and anxiety threatens to overwhelm me. Has God ever been anything but good? A dear friend helped us with our truck situation. Today we’re driving to a mechanic who lives two hours from here, and we’ll pay $200 for the needed truck repair instead of $14,000. God is alive and deeply involved in our situation.  

I sit with the desires of my heart. A desire to coach people financially. A desire to fix the fireplace. A desire to have the means to help our kids more. A desire to be able to be ridiculously generous toward those in need. A desire to be a person of hope in my city. A desire to work hard and be wise and grow in love. And there sit those simple words on the pages of my Bible that tell me desire is a flame inside of me that will end only in good. Truth.

What a great vulnerability is required, to dare place one’s desire in the hands of God. Does he care? Will he respond? Will disappointment be waiting for me? What if his idea of good isn’t the same as mine? Is it still good if he redefines the outcome? Do I trust him with this fragile longing? Maybe it’s easier to receive salvation for the soul than it is to reach into the heart and let God have his way with the longings that ache to be realized. 

What does good look like? I ask the Lord. Show me. I practice giving him artistic license with my desire. And I remember all of the ways the desires of my heart have ended only in good, since 1977 when I first chose Jesus. 

Be encouraged. 

The Lord is good. He will not stoop to be anything less than good and especially when it comes to your personal desire.