When the Only Good is God

Some meditations on a Psalm of Asaph:

"Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever...
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
That I may tell of all Your works." Ps. 73:25-28

What will I do when the only good I can see in my life is my God, and when He is only dimly seen? What will I do when the plague, the disease, is in my body, and I notice that the wicked around me are healthy and happy? What will I do when I am lonely, the friends are dead and gone or only broken relationships remain, and others are surrounded by frienship? What will I do when there is no ease? Physically I'm shot, mentally I'm distracted, forgetful, depressed, little remembrance of God or His Word or friends and family, and emotionally I'm either dry to the point of no feeling or like a waterfall of out-of-control emotions? What will I do when the echoes of Christian culture and the words of well-meaning friends that are ringing in my ears is that blessing is my destiny, healing is my right, and with Jesus all things get better, and I am experiencing nothing of the sort? What will I do?

Honestly I don't know, but I pray I will open my Bible and listen to the counsel of the Holy Spirit in passages like Psalm 73.

I pray that even now my friends who know Jesus, and those that surround them watching them suffer with cancer and with brain tumors will remember that when everything fails: "flesh"--one's body--"heart"--one's dreams, desires, emotions, aspirations, longings, affections. When all of that fails that they would remember that God is their strength and that God is their portion.

For the one who trusts Jesus the failing of flesh and the failing of heart is all momentary anyway. The body will be restored and resurrected, and the heart will receive unbridled joy and the fulfillment of all one as ever wanted or all one ever dreamed would be possible. This will all take place in the new heavens and the new earth, and, most importantly, Jesus will be there.

The best good is God, and He will be near, because He will dwell with His people, and, in fact, does so even now with the cancer and with the tumor. Somehow all affliction is momentary and light, and the weight of glory ahead outweighs tiny afflictions like cancer and brain tumors, but it sure as hell won't feel that way sometimes. It will feel like all is failing, and, like this Psalm says, it "may fail."

But God. But God. But God.

Psalm 73 gives me the testimony of a godly man who experienced all of that and what he did in that state. I pray that that is what I will do, and that this is what you will do: First, remember that the end of the wicked, they that don't repent of their sins and trust Jesus, is destruction. Even if happy and healthy and wealthy till death--God despises them (Ps. 73:18-20). Second, repent of envy and being embittered (Ps. 73:21). Third, desire the only good one has, which is God (Ps. 73:28). Stay close to Jesus. Third, start talking about God and the things He has done (Ps. 73:28). Do this by preaching to your own soul and by telling others.

God is good all the time, even when every other good in one's life appears to be gone.

This is good news.