God's Goodness

I began working at a restaurant called Jimmy’s Egg in Oklahoma when I was 14. Waiting on tables was new to me, so there was a little bit of a learning curve. It was fast-paced. Sometimes I would have five or six tables at a time. It required being quick on my feet and having a sharp memory. I made my share of mistakes, especially in the first weeks. The worst mistakes were messing up on a person’s order, like bringing them scrambled eggs when they had asked for sunny-side up.

It was a high-stress environment. I remember feeling like the manager (he was also the head cook) was always irritated with me. He never smiled or greeted me when I arrived in the morning, and anytime he would say anything to me it was in a condescending tone correcting something I had done wrong. It made the work environment unpleasant, but I loved coming home with about $125 to $150 a day.

I was determined to do well. I wanted my boss to like me. I wanted to be on his good side. I felt intimidated and very inadequate the first few weeks, but as time passed, I started getting the hang of it. Customers seemed to like me. I was making good tips, and making fewer mistakes. One day, I got a subtle smile and an indirect compliment from my boss. It felt so good. My improved performance resulted in his favorable posture towards me. I won him over by doing my job well. When I left that job, he was disappointed to lose me.

My improved job performance resulted in a favorable posture from my boss. His attitude toward me changed. The better I was at my job, the more he seemed to like me.

In 2014, my daughter Abigail was born. I was overwhelmed with joy. I loved her more than I can describe. It was such an amazing feeling. I had a favorable posture toward her. What had she done to awaken my love? How had she earned my approval? At that stage in her life, all she did was poop, pee, sleep, and cry. There wasn’t much interaction, yet I loved her more than I loved my own life. She didn’t do anything to make me like her. My feelings about her were positive right from the beginning, and they have not changed.

Jesus compared God’s love for humans to a father’s love for his children. He said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13). Actually, God loves even more than an earthly father. Unlike my boss, whose favor I had to earn by being good at my job, our Father in Heaven loves us before we are even capable of knowing and appreciating his goodness toward us.

Paul in his letter to the Romans proposes that it is not our good behavior that makes God show his goodness and favor towards us, but rather it is "the goodness of God [that] leads you to repentance” (Rom 2:4). John put it this way, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). And in Romans 5, Paul will repeat this idea three times. “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6). Humans “will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (vs 5-8). Again, Paul states that “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…” (vs 10).

Notice: “while we were still weak” (vs. 6); “while we were still sinners” (vs. 8); “while we were enemies” (vs. 10). Jesus told his followers in the Sermon on the Mount that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt 5:45). There is no question about it. God is the one who initiates reconciliation. He loves first. Whatever good we are or could do is a result of his goodness first being poured out to us.