Five words, sixteen letters: for the Lord is good. These five words are the bedrock that gives hope and purpose to your life and to your parenting. They form the lens that will allow you see life with a clear vision. Without them life is blurry, uncertain, even terrifying.
These words come from the fifth verse of Psalm 100:
For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
These are words of hope when life hurts. They offer assurance when circumstances seem to line up against you. They speak of God’s faithfulness to your children. They are good words!
This verse contains 3 foundational truths that provide hope. They provide you with the mental / spiritual framework for how to interpret the events of your life. These words encourage you that God will be faithful to your children. Let’s take a brief look at each truth.
First: For the Lord is good. This provides the foundational perspective to interpret the events of your life. Psalm 100 is the conclusion of a series that began with Psalm 93 that celebrate the kingship of God over the all earth. These Psalms declare that God is good and he is supreme. This means that life is not random! Through the hard times and the happy times God is good. Life is always changing. God’s goodness never changes. It is a challenging truth. Yet it is a comforting truth for its elegant simplicity. No matter what happens, God is good!
Second: His unfailing love continues forever. This portion of passage is how you make sense of a crazy world. This reality never changes: God does not fail! He is intimately involved in all you do. He determines the exact places you will live. He gives you He knows your thoughts even before you have them. (Acts 17:24-28; Psalm 139:1-6) There is no event that happens where his love fails to continue! This is truth hanging worth hanging onto.
Third: His faithfulness continues to each generation. This means God’s faithfulness extends to your children and beyond. Your patterns of sin can end now and your children will know of God’s faithfulness in the generations to come.
Parents, you can’t mess up God’s grace. This is huge. Yes, you will sin and wish you had countless “do overs” to make up for your errors in parenting. But God’s faithfulness is not dependent upon you getting it right! He will be faithful because of who he is, not because of who you are. This is your hope: God is faithful.
One short verse in one short psalm gives you hope and vision to know that the Lord is good!
For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.