#goodness
A Good God (#wtsdevo goodness)
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” -Romans 7:18
Hopefully we can all own this verse. It’s only been a few years since I’ve been able to look at it honestly. Because we live among the measures of good, better and best by our standards. But God, in His perfect goodness is the only truly good One. Paul understood that.
If there is anything about me that isn’t utterly despicable, it’s only by the grace of God and His goodness through me. Not from me or by me. We are simply the vessels that display His goodness. Pride can convince us otherwise but only God is good.
He is a good, good Father.
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Devotional Series: Goodness (#wtsdevo goodness)
By: Julian Davis \ Personal // Walk the Same
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His Steadfast Love (#wtsdevo goodness)
“For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” - Psalm 100:5
There was a time in my life not too long ago where I questioned God’s goodness in my heart. For a few months, the circumstances of my life had been going in a direction that I thought was going to change my life for good. I thought I had reached a point where the next steps for me were clear, where I knew what was going to happen. I was so excited about the future that seemed to be in front of me. But in just a few days, all that changed completely. Almost every aspect of what I had planned fell apart. I no longer knew what I would be doing in the next few months, and I no longer knew who would be with me on that journey. It was one of the loneliest times of my life as I wrestled with trusting the Lord and remaining close to Him while I waited to see what He would actually bring about. Graciously He provided everything I needed and more, and now I am so thankful for the way He redirected my life. His plan was infinitely better than mine.
But what I struggled with as all this was happening was that I questioned whether God was really being “good” in all this. I felt like He had given me certain gifts of people in my life as well as a job opportunity. I felt like I had been unjustly robbed of those things when they were taken away. I wondered whether I had done something wrong, or whether I had just misheard God’s voice. It took many months, but after seeking the Lord and coming to Him in honesty and brokenness, He said to me clearly that He had never changed that whole time (Malachi 3:6). He had remained good. He had remained faithful and loving to me. What was missing was my perspective. His goodness never changes because He never changes! I simply could not see it from my partial and flawed perspective. Even when the Lord spoke that truth to me, I had to believe it by faith. I could not explain everything that happened. Today, I still may not be able to explain every detail, but what I definitely can explain is that since then, I have seen the goodness of the Lord (Psalm 27:13). Even in taking things away, He was actually merciful and loving and good because He knew what was best for me. He knew what His plan was all along, and just because I didn’t, didn’t mean that He wasn’t good. Friends, we can have confidence that our Lord never changes. No matter what happens, He is faithful and He is good. He is our rock solid foundation that we can trust. This means that when our circumstances seem awful or even irredeemable, the fact that He is good means that He is actually working in them to bring about His plan for our good as His children. Let’s praise Him for His goodness today, rest in that foundation, and ask Him to help us trust Him by faith that He is good even when we can’t see it.
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Devotional Series: Goodness (#wtsdevo goodness)
Posted by: Rebecca Hankins \ Personal// Walk the Same
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His Goodness Prevails (#wtsdevo goodness)
Psalm 91 happens to be one of my most favorite Psalms in the Bible because on a bad day, it reminds me that God’s goodness stands out and breaks away all negativity and replaces it with the comfort and grace of God and everything good that you can possibly imagine.
I think that with so much happening these days around in our world, it is easy to lose it and fall into the trap where you end up feeling like everything is going downhill. And in circumstances such as this it is important to journey on ahead with positivity and so much hope. The way that one can do this is by being reminded of God’s goodness and the best source of this is through His own words in the Bible.
The Bible is filled with reminders about His goodness but simply taking Psalm 91 alone and unpacking it, tells us that no matter the season, situation or circumstance, God’s goodness prevails. It comes through even in the times when you might never expect it but it surely does come.
God is our Father and He loves us more than we can ever imagine. He is always for us and is always with us even in the stormy times of life - carrying us through and allowing us to grow in our wisdom and strength. All we need to do it believe and cling onto Him.
He never fails. His goodness is here to stay.
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Devotional Series: Goodness (#wtsdevo goodness)
By: Jude \ Personal//Walk the Same
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God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. - Augustine #WTSInspire
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Give Thanks to the LORD, for He is Good
1 Praise the Lord!
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
2
Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord?
Who can declare all His praise?
3
Blessed are those who keep justice,
And he who does righteousness at all times!
4
Remember me, O Lord, with the favor You have toward Your people.
Oh, visit me with Your salvation,
5
That I may see the benefit of Your chosen ones,
That I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation,
That I may glory with Your inheritance.
6
We have sinned with our fathers,
We have committed iniquity,
We have done wickedly.
7
Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders;
They did not remember the multitude of Your mercies,
But rebelled by the sea—the Red Sea.
8
Nevertheless He saved them for His name’s sake,
That He might make His mighty power known.
9
He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it dried up;
So He led them through the depths,
As through the wilderness.
10
He saved them from the hand of him who hated them,
And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
11
The waters covered their enemies;
There was not one of them left.
12
Then they believed His words;
They sang His praise.
13
They soon forgot His works;
They did not wait for His counsel,
14
But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness,
And tested God in the desert.
15
And He gave them their request,
But sent leanness into their soul.
16
When they envied Moses in the camp,
And Aaron the saint of the Lord,
17
The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan,
And covered the faction of Abiram.
18
A fire was kindled in their company;
The flame burned up the wicked.
19
They made a calf in Horeb,
And worshiped the molded image.
20
Thus they changed their glory
Into the image of an ox that eats grass.
21
They forgot God their Savior,
Who had done great things in Egypt,
22
Wondrous works in the land of Ham,
Awesome things by the Red Sea.
23
Therefore He said that He would destroy them,
Had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach,
To turn away His wrath, lest He destroy them.
24
Then they despised the pleasant land;
They did not believe His word,
25
But complained in their tents,
And did not heed the voice of the Lord.
26
Therefore He raised His hand in an oath against them,
To overthrow them in the wilderness,
27
To overthrow their descendants among the nations,
And to scatter them in the lands.
28
They joined themselves also to Baal of Peor,
And ate sacrifices made to the dead.
29
Thus they provoked Him to anger with their deeds,
And the plague broke out among them.
30
Then Phinehas stood up and intervened,
And the plague was stopped.
31
And that was accounted to him for righteousness
To all generations forevermore.
32
They angered Him also at the waters of strife,
So that it went ill with Moses on account of them;
33
Because they rebelled against His Spirit,
So that he spoke rashly with his lips.
34
They did not destroy the peoples,
Concerning whom the Lord had commanded them,
35
But they mingled with the Gentiles
And learned their works;
36
They served their idols,
Which became a snare to them.
37
They even sacrificed their sons
And their daughters to demons,
38
And shed innocent blood,
The blood of their sons and daughters,
Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with blood.
39
Thus they were defiled by their own works,
And played the harlot by their own deeds.
40
Therefore the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people,
So that He abhorred His own inheritance.
41
And He gave them into the hand of the Gentiles,
And those who hated them ruled over them.
42
Their enemies also oppressed them,
And they were brought into subjection under their hand.
43
Many times He delivered them;
But they rebelled in their counsel,
And were brought low for their iniquity.
44
Nevertheless He regarded their affliction,
When He heard their cry;
45
And for their sake He remembered His covenant,
And relented according to the multitude of His mercies.
46
He also made them to be pitied
By all those who carried them away captive.
47
Save us, O Lord our God,
And gather us from among the Gentiles,
To give thanks to Your holy name,
To triumph in Your praise.
48
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
From everlasting to everlasting!
And let all the people say, “Amen!”
Praise the Lord!
—Psalm 106 | New King James Version (NKJV)
The Holy Bible; New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Cross References: Genesis 15:6; Genesis 43:14; Exodus 3:7; Exodus 6:25; Exodus 9:16; Exodus 14:11; Exodus 14:27-28; Exodus 14:31; Exodus 15:24; Exodus 32:10; Leviticus 26:17; Leviticus 26:33; Numbers 10:9; Numbers 11:31; Numbers 16:1; Numbers 16:32; Numbers 16:35; Numbers 33:52; Numbers 35:33; Deuteronomy 4:3; Deuteronomy 8:14; Joshua 23:12; Judges 2:14; Judges 2:16-17; judges 10:12; 1 Samuel 7:6; 1 Chronicles 16:34; Psalm 1:3; Psalm 9:14; Psalm 15:2; Psalm 18:15; Psalm 66:5-6; Psalm 81:7; Psalm 81:11; Psalm 97:7; Psalm 107:3; Psalm 107:11; Jeremiah 2:11; Hosea 9:10; Luke 1:68; Luke 1:71-72; Acts 7:41; 1 Corinthians 10:6; 1 Corinthians 10:20; Hebrews 3:11; Hebrews 3:19
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okay so that’s at least one person who would have no problem if they got sent back to medieval times, the guild hall absolutely going off to this mashup
Sleep tends to be the common experience of letting one’s self go, as is the case with all moments of rest (good or bad). Anthropologically (philosophically) speaking, man was made to rest. In this sense, we might say that letting one’s self go is a necessary dimension of being human. But to qualify this act: we are letting ourselves go into what is ultimately good. (Rest in God)
In this way, excessive control of one’s self is actually a type of vice. Metaphorically it would be like the soul imitating a body always tense, always utilising one’s muscles as though to become rigid, and inflexible.
I think this is the point of virtue – that our left hand doesn’t know what our right hand is doing. When we do the good for good reason, habitually it becomes second nature to us. In some cases, to have these virtues is to somewhat not even realise that we have them. They simply flow out of our daily attitudes and acts naturally.
But one who exerts strenuous effort to do some externally good act reveals to others perhaps a fault. Perhaps the good habit isn’t there. Perhaps the externally good action isn’t done for the right reason. It’s like that fakery of a smile plastered on a person’s face that communicates something empty. It’s that cleaning of the outside of a cup, but not the inside.
If doing what is good is latently resented by the amount of energy and difficulties required – it seems empty. I think that’s why sometimes we see people leave the priesthood or seminary or married life or whatever, and end up entering into all sorts of absurd and contrary actions to their vocation. The virtue – the internalisation of chastity or charity, never happened – just the external acts, perhaps white-knuckled.
Sometimes Christ has been described in the spiritual sense to be at rest on the cross. Can we relate? Today if a man on the street spat on your face, would you be more concerned for him? Would it be easy to see him as a brother and not worry about our own ego? This virtue requires no control of impulses, or bridling anger. It’s just the fruit of knowing the poor, and serving them in charity.
To circle back to the original point – we were made for rest. If doing the good is constantly difficult, we might want to ask why. What is preventing the good from becoming second nature to us? Have we perhaps ascribed more meaning to hard work and busyness than we ought to? Are we only doing externally good acts without an interiorly good spirit? Are our good deeds mere external acts, like whitewashed tombs?
Don’t burn out – instead build virtue. Virtue is only understood properly when married to the interior life. Let your whole self go into what is truly good, and there will be less fragility at the sight of a cross. In fact, we may find rest in it.
~ Fr Christopher Pietraszko
Give me a story where Qui-gon survives, but at the cost of Obi-wan losing an arm and his legs. A mirror image to the loss Vader suffers.
Let me see all that physical pain and adaption that Lucas loves to put into his villains turned into something light and amazing.
Let Anakin see the Jedi’s hypocrisy when they cast Obi-Wan out because he’s angry and in pain and they say he can’t access the living force anymore. When Obi-Wan always favored the unifying force anyway.
Let him ask why they fear he’ll go dark and see the parallels to slaver ‘mercy’ when they free slaves too weak or injured to work because it isn’t worth paying slave tax on them and you have to pay a fine if you kill off your slaves in order to dodge taxes.
Because the Jedi don’t have money or things. When he gets cast out all Obi-Wan will have are the robes on his back, a lifetime of fighting skills, and mounting debt as he tries to get prosthetics and pain management.
All Jedi who leave the order go grey or dark is a self fulfilling prophecy when you toss them out without trade skills or money.
Let me see a Anakin who picks a path with Obi-Wan still. Two gray force users. Making a life for themselves of the fringe of society, freeing slaves, learning to force heal and build prosthetics. All with the queens of Naboo and Mandalores quiet and unofficial backing. Dodging Jedi and Sith interference at every turn.
Until one day they stumble on a planet in the middle of nowhere and are shown thousands of slave children waiting to be sent to die for the Republic and the Jedi they are trained to serve.
They steal them away a little at a time. Covert opps they tell anyone that asks. And when they check the boys for slave chips and oh do they find them.
Palpatine doesn’t even know his plans have gone astray until it explodes all over the net that a thousand fighters have appeared out of no where to destroy the Hutt empire. All the slaves are free and any system wanting to break from republic rule are free to petition to join the new alliance. Naboo and Mandalore are some of the first to join.
There are all the clones he had planned to use against the Jedi along with the chosen one and his mentor who have remained annoyingly too hidden for Palpatine to gain control of.
And here are Yoda and Mace faced with two men who they cast aside as too broken and likely to fall. Now shining in the force so brightly that is has cleared away shatterpoints and the ever encroaching sith influence.
And lots of days Obi-Wan is in too much pain to leave his bed and Anakin is so angry his aura rolls in like a thunderstorm darkening the very force around him. But that’s okay because the force is not a power limited by emotion or trauma no matter what some religions may say.
You do have goodness in you. Maybe you’ve abandoned it out of fear. Maybe you don’t want to seem vulnerable, you don’t want to be bullied, you’re afraid of how people would react to you pouring out all the love you have inside you. So you locked yourself away, guarded up behind walls, high up in a castle tower to feel protected. But the view from up there is not so pretty, and it is so isolated. It is safe to come out. To search deep into yourself, clean the moss, remove the weeds, pull out overgrown branches and thorns to find your heart again. It is still there. Worn out, but still beating. There is love in it still. So much love it could pour out into the world. Allow yourself to feel all this passion, all this love, and to give it to the world fearlessly, and the it will give it back to you; no matter how harsh, how cruel and how chaotic the world may seem. Because there is still goodness in the world, as there is still goodness in you.
You deserve good things.
Day 119 of 365 - A Berry Berry Good Day, with a trip to @cullipherfarm market in Creeds Virginia. Many people were out in the fields doing Upick. Me, I picked one of these amazing baskets of fresh strawberries. They were perfect, sweet and full of flavor. Run by sixth and seventh generation farmers, this farm is part of Virginia Beach’s agricultural legacy.
#supportfarmers #strawberryseason #red #goodness #365days #365photography #365photochallenge2022 #shotoniphone (at Cullipher Farm)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc9KreUO4G4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!
21 THINGS NOT TO SAY TO A SURVIVOR OF ABUSE/ S.A. !!!
https://www.asafeport.org/programs/direct-services/what-not-to-say-to-a-victim-of-sexual-assault/
Fair Haven - What Not to Say to a Victim of Sexual Assault
Please share!! By survivors for survivors is the MOST valid and best type of resource for anything sexual assault/abuse/trauma related.
LIFE IS ALREADY DIFFICULT ENOUGH FOR US AS SURVIVORS OF ABUSE AND ASSAULT. THE LAST THING WE NEED IS PEOPLE WHO ARE PURPOSEFULLY TRYING TO PREY ON OUR WEAKNESSES OR MAKE US FEEL LIKE IT WAS DESERVED BECAUSE IT WAS 100% NOT. THE OPINIONS OF THOSE PEOPLE DO NOT MATTER. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH, YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, YOU KNOW YOUR TRUTH, YOU KNOW YOURSELF. THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. YOU DO NOT NEED TO PROVE YOURSELF TO ANYBODY. PEOPLE WHO WOULD EVEN THINK TO PUT YOU DOWN BECAUSE OF YOUR TRAUMA OR PURPOSEFULLY ENXOURAGE IT HAPPENING AGAIN ARE HORRIBLY SICK AND HAVE THEIR OWN VERY EXTENSUVE ISSUES AND HEALING TO DO, THEIR HATE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU OR THE VALIDITY OF YOUR TRAUMA. YOU ARE 100% VALID. YOU KNOW YOU ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. YOU KNOW HOW REAL IT IS. YOU KNOW THAT THEY COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND. YOU ARE SO STRONG.
ASAFEPORT.ORG
