Hi, I am Seth Dahl, I am a Christian author and minister out of Bethel Church in Austin, Texas. Welcome to God Today. We are so glad that you join us in these videos so we can encourage you, pray for you, and bless you as you go about your day.
I love the verse that ends Psalm 23, verse 6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Now, His goodness can be clearly understood from Romans 8:28, we all know it. It says, “We know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Now, what that means is that His goodness makes all bad things good. His goodness makes all challenging situations into something good. And His mercy can be defined as when God makes sure we don’t get what we deserve.
And now, I am sure if any of us look back on our lives, we can see times where God’s goodness, His mercy followed us. Where they came behind us into these interesting, challenging, ugly, nasty, horrible situations. And sorted things out. Made them good.
I remember one specific time in my life, where I had accidentally made a scheduling decision that really hurt one of my best friends. And by the time I had found out what had happened, it was too late to change it. And let’s just say that I had not only felt horrible, but I also started coming under attack in my thought life. I started thinking things like, “Well, maybe I made that decision and forgot about him because deep down inside, I really don’t care. Maybe I am just selfish. Maybe he would be better off without me as a friend if this is how I am going to treat him.”
Now, just saying those things out loud right now makes what happened actually not sound so bad. But in my head, at the time, I was really struggling. Isn’t that just how the enemy works though? He exaggerates little things in our minds so they sound a lot worse than they actually are? And so we will dig ourselves into these holes. And we forget about what God has said about us.
But for me, in this situation, all kinds of shameful, condemning thoughts were flooding my mind. And after spiraling down about it all, and agreeing with those thoughts, and beating myself up, I heard God tell me that I didn’t actually do it on purpose. It was an accident. And then He reminded me His goodness and mercy are following me.
And here is what He said, “Watch what I do.” His goodness came and the thing I scheduled got canceled, it got all sorted out. I didn’t even have to worry about it. I stressed about it for so long and it just got sorted out. God’s goodness came behind me in the decision I had made, in the mess I had made. God’s goodness came behind me and turned this stressful – to me – horrible situation, turned it good. And He made sure, by His mercy, that I didn’t get what I deserved.
I have plenty of times like that in my life. I am sure you have plenty of times like that in yours. Maybe you are even going through something like that right now in your own life. Where you’ve made some decisions, you’ve done some things, you’ve said some things, you’ve hurt some people. Whatever. Stuff has happened and you’re like, “Man, that’s bad. That’s not good.” You need to be reminded today that His goodness is right behind you. His mercy is right behind you. He is coming right after you to turn bad things, challenging things, not-so-good things…He is right behind you to turn them good. And He is right behind you to make sure you don’t get what you deserve. But, instead, you get what He deserves.
Let me pray for you. God, I pray for the people watching, whatever situation they’re in, whatever they’re going through, whatever decisions they’ve made, if there is any regret, if there is any shame, if there is no condemnation, if there is anything over their head that shouldn’t be there…Father, we pray that you lift it off right now. That you would remind them of the things they need to be reminded of, just like you did with me. But God, I pray they would realize your goodness, your mercy are right behind them. Coming right behind them, turning bad things good, making sure they don’t get what they deserve. Thanks, Father, that we can read this verse, apply it to our lives, and we can confidently say, “Surely, your goodness and mercy are following us all the days of our lives.” I pray today would be a day where goodness turns bad things good, and mercy makes sure we only get what you deserve, not what we deserve. In your name, we pray, Jesus. Amen.
Thank you guys for watching. I hope this video has been helpful to you. I hope you can look back in a short amount of time and realize, “Wow, His goodness really did follow me. So did His mercy.” Bless you. We will see you soon in another video.