God is good. . . . ALL the time

This week closes out another year in education for me. My first in 24 years where I didn’t work directly with young people in some capacity. Which made it a different year for sure.

Turns out, God was providing me a year of reflecting on the relationships He has blessed me with over the years.

I love catching up with students that He has placed in my path since my days as a young teacher and coach or my time as a school administrator. Seeing them grow and build families. Hearing them tell me about their lives and sometimes reflecting on stories from a 7th grade classroom or a high school baseball game reminds me of so many blessings God has given me through the years.

Outside of former students, God also has put other situations in my path that served as insight on relationships that turned out to have a different valuation than what I thought and hoped. And I’m thankful to God for the revealing in those places as well, even though it’s hard to give thanks during that revelation process.

But this year, God has taught me to be quiet. I’m going to tell you, it’s hard for someone that He gave the gift of being able to deliver an answer to just sit. But, there’s a lot to see and learn that way.

When the Israelites had been led out of Egyptian servitude, they didn’t focus on what God had done for them, they kept analyzing how He was doing it.

They wanted out of Egypt. But, they wanted it to be easy. To just leave and go establish wonderful, stress-free lives somewhere else – no questions asked.

But, when the Egyptians went, “Wait a minute. We are going to have to do all this work ourselves?!?” and pursued the Israelites, their tone changed.

When it got a little harder, they forgot that God broke the chains.

When stress-free turned into harder heartbeats, they forgot about Passover night.

When they disagreed with a decision or two, they no longer gave thanks for Moses’ leadership.

Instead they sounded a lot like me.

Greg: “I knew this wouldn’t turn out good if it happened this way.”
Israelites (Exodus 14:12): “Isn’t this what we said in Egypt?. . . It would have been better if. . “

Greg: “God, why did you put this on me? I wasn’t even involved in. . .”
Israelites: (Exodus 14:11): “Moses, what have you done by bringing us out of Egypt? Weren’t there enough graves there that we have to die out here?”

But, Moses reminds them that things don’t happen FOR them, but THROUGH them. He says, “The LORD will fight for you; you must be quiet.”

It even reminds me about the blind man that Jesus sent to the pool of Siloam for healing. The burden wasn’t because of him. . . or even about him at all. But for one purpose: so that God might be glorified. (John 9:3)

So, if you’re reading this today wondering “why” in your own life and even asking God that question directly, I can tell you the answer.

It is so that He might be made known and His kingdom advance.

I praise God for so many things
– For an awesome wife who loves and seeks God (and who is more beautiful today than when we started dating in high school)
– For a wonderful daughter and a new son-in-law and two awesome late teenage young men
– For many valuable relationships with friends (and tons of new friendships that are growing this year)
– For parents that model a strong relationship based on faith
– For the many gifts that He has given me (and I pray I use them as He has intended me)

And this week, I’m thankful for the time he gave me to catch a few SEC baseball tournament games with my two favorite guys