There is much to love and appreciate about our God, much for which we ought to give him praise and thanks. One of the attributes we may consider too seldom is his goodness, and as an aspect or component of his goodness, his kindness. And that is the subject of Nate Pickowicz’s new book The Kindness of God: Beholding His Goodness in a Cruel World.

The Kindness of God

The fact is that we live in an unkind world. We live in a broken world in which we sin and grieve and suffer. We live in a world in which evil comes to each of us and in which evil comes from each of us. We are accustomed to being unkind and being treated unkindly. And in such a world it may be hard to believe that there is a God who is kind. Yet this is exactly how God reveals himself to us.
“God is good; we are sinful,” says Pickowicz in the early pages. “Because of this, we are undeserving of his goodness. But because of God’s mercy, he demonstrates lovingkindness to us. Therefore, every kindness we experience is pure grace and ought to be received with gladness and thankfulness.” This “Grand Premise” stands behind the book and serves as a kind of backdrop to an exploration of the topic.
The bulk of the book explores God’s kindness as he displays it to us in various ways: In the salvation of the lost, in granting the gifts of repentance and faith, and in the blessing of sanctification. Then it turns to God’s kindness in relationships like marriage, children, friendship, and even with God himself. It turns to God’s kindness in giving us blessings like gifts and talents and provision for our needs. Of course, the book would be incomplete if it did not account for God’s kindness to us in our suffering. One particularly encouraging chapter shows how God’s kindness meets us in our trials and tribulations. While we may never understand why bad things happen to us in this world, we can most certainly be assured that God’s lovingkindness to us never ceases and never permits anything that is ultimately to our harm.
The book wraps up with a pair of chapters that show how God’s kindness is also reflected in Christians (since those who have been recipients of God’s kindness must display it to others) and in his grace to the nations (since without his kindness the world would be uninhabitably awful).
I have often been drawn to God’s kindness and pondered what a blessing it is. The Kindness of God has provoked me to do so once again and to praise and thank him for this most wonderful of attributes. And for that, I’m grateful.

The Lord bless you and keep you on this fine day.

“Self-control is a Fruit of the Spirit, which means that we depend upon God’s grace to receive it, but we can’t be passive. Self-control is a discipline, too. It is a muscle we exercise or we don’t. We each have an obligation to mortify our flesh and resist sinful temptation in all forms. Given the powerful currents of our society, we must be intentional about practicing self-denial.”

Betty-Anne Van Rees points out that when we are afraid we are often afraid of the wrong thing. “One mystifying aspect of the spiritual battles we face as followers of Jesus is the almost universal tendency to be afraid of the things that are helpful for us and unafraid of those that are harmful.”

Selah means pause. Reflect. Meditate. Consider. Take a breath. See God for who he is. Can you feel the weight lifted from David’s shoulders? Do you feel your own heartbeat slowing down at this beautiful change in his perspective? Yes, Saul was still pursuing him, and he and his men would need to move camp again. But they could handle these things with the confidence of faith in their God. (Sponsored)

Doug will help reaffirm in your mind just how dumb it is to sin.

This article is a celebration of sorts—a celebration of the various kid noises you tend to hear on a Sunday morning.

“Unbelievers, even though their hearts and minds are opposed to God’s truth, sometimes have more spiritual insight than we give them credit for.” Let Robert Rothwell explain what he means and why it matters.

We know the death of a saint is precious in the eyes of the Lord. But do we know why? Jim McCarthy offers three good reasons.

Of all the mysteries in this universe, few are more perplexing than the mystery of God’s sovereignty over life and death…Why does God call some early to heaven who surely could have done so much good on earth? Why God, we ask? Why?

God’s eternal, heavenly story doesn’t obliterate my earthly, painful story; it gives it meaning.
—Robert Kellemen

A father and his child walked together by the banks of the Yangtze River. They paused often to gaze at it in wonder. In the distance, they could hear the roar of a waterfall and they could see great clouds of mist rising far into the air. Soon they came to the edge of the chasm where the water plummets to a gorge far below. Approaching the bank of the river where the water is shallow and safe, they stopped and stooped so the father could dip a cup into the river. He held it toward his child and said, “Drink.” But just as the cup met the child’s thirsty lips, a voice boomed from the river and said, “Don’t drink! There’s not enough water for you. I am in danger of running dry.”

The missionaries had traveled far down the Amazon in a long, open river canoe. A local pilot guided the husband and wife safely through sections narrow and wide, deep and shallow. He led them safely to the point where they would disembark and begin their lives among a tribe that had never heard of Jesus and never had the opportunity to worship his name. When the boat finally nudged up against the bank of the river, they leaped ashore. Having unloaded their meager belongings, they watched the pilot turn and head back, their last link to the lives they had left behind. Taking a bucket, the wife dipped it and filled it and just as she began to pull it ashore, the river cried out, “You can take that, but no more. You can drink seldom, but not often. For my water is running out. This river is running dry.”
Stuff and nonsense, as they say. The world’s great rivers do not run dry. The world’s great rivers flow throughout the seasons. The world’s great rivers are never so low that they cannot sate the thirst of a parched traveler, never so dry that they cannot refresh the body of a weary wanderer. We can drink from them as often as we need to, refresh ourselves in their waters, irrigate our lands as much as necessary. They flow swiftly, they flow mightily, they flow endlessly. They flow like the grace of God. They flowed yesterday and they flow today and they will flow still tomorrow and through endless ages to come. They flow without end and always invite us to take and drink.
And so too the grace of God. We can always and forever approach God’s throne of grace and plead for mercy and grace to help in our time of need. We can plead for mercy that forgives when we have strayed and God will never turn us away, he will never fail to respond, he will never refuse to pardon us. We can plead for grace, grace to equip us to endure trials, to remain unbroken when tested, and to remain unsullied when tempted.
And that grace will never run out. We will never exhaust God with our coming to him, never tire God with our pleas for his help. We will never reach the end of his ability to assist or his capacity to intervene. We will never encounter an enemy that is beyond his power to defeat and never come into a situation that is beyond his power to overcome. He will never be bothered by our coming and he will never turn us away. If God utters any complaint at all, it is merely that we should have approached more often and more earnestly, that we should have drunk more freely of the waters and drunk more deeply.
“Drink!” say the great rivers of the world. “Drink until you are satisfied and then drink again. Drink without hesitation. Drink without concern. Drink without fear that you will exhaust these waters.” And “Approach!” says God. “Approach my throne and simply ask—ask for mercy, ask for grace, ask in your time of need, ask and ask again, and I will supply what you require. The Amazon will run dry long before you reach the end of my grace. The Yangtze will cry out for you to stop drinking of its waters before I will scold you for coming to me too frequently, too earnestly, too helplessly. So come and speak, come and plead, come and drink.”

Inspired by F.B. Meyer