God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

How easy is this phrase to say when sitting in the back row of a church, half asleep, watching the clock as minutes turn into hours. “Praise the Lord!” you shout along side the congregation as the pastor preaches his sermon on God’s faithfulness in all things. You long to experience God on your own time. You don’t enjoy the life of the unfulfilled, but you will take what you can get.

This was my life. This is why I dragged myself out my warm bed on a Canadian winters morning. The drive to pursue God was being consistently overpowered by the drive to not become “one of them”.

You know them. The front row. They show up early, and could sing and dance long into the night. They know that God is good all the time, for they have experienced it. “Holy is The Lord, for He has rescued me!” is their cry. They look fake to those in the back, but their minds are made up. They are at church for Jesus. They are not there to PLEASE, but to PRAISE.

This is a story of how in one night God made me choose my permanent seat in His church. I could choose the back, the front, or even the parking lot. But a choice needed to be made.

July 4th 2010

The Independence Day party dies down as the clock ticks into the night. People make their way to their rooms as the guys clear space for their sleeping mats and mosquito nets in the dining room area. Within hours we are all asleep in our sleeping bags, while mosquitoes zip and dive around looking for blood.

I awake the next morning hearing words that everyone desires to hear, “Chris, wake up. Last night we were robbed”. GREAT! As we slept, Mac computers, iPods, backpacks and other miscellaneous items were stolen right through our fingertips. We didn’t awake during the burglary, but instead slept soundly as the thieves took headphones out from my ears, and computers from right beside our heads.

Is God good? At that moment I felt like I had every right to curse God. Curse Him for allowing people walk away with many thousands of dollars of possessions we had worked hard to save money for, or were given as gifts. Curse Him for not allowing us to awake while this was happening. Curse Him because someone removed my headphones from within my ears as I slept listening to my favourite Coldplay album.

I couldn’t curse Him though. I was filled with joy. We didn’t know who these people were, what they could have done, and if they were carrying any weapons. Who knows that if we woke up, we could have been seriously injured. God knows. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that He had His hands over us as we slept. He may have made the thieves blind to us, or taken away destructive or harmful intent from them. Who can really say?

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

Now that was a story is about worldly possessions. Things that we could probably do without. Things that usually, we give priority over our Saviour. Possessions that can do “everything”. Provide us entertainment, grant us a way to connect with family and friends, as well as even allow us to stay current with world events from distant countries. Not that any of these are bad things. But when any of these things start taking priority over our walk with The Lord, we begin to walk a dangerous line. We are putting a higher value on a price tag, than on Christ.

A tough lesson to learn, and a tougher way to learn it. God is good, all the time. Where are you sitting in The Lord’s house? God has called you to greatness. A greatness that can be reached only through Him. Don’t sit in the back rows any longer. Press forward. Press into God.