Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits… who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
God is good.
Psalm 103 is not primarily about what we “get” from God because we are his, but the many ways God gives us himself. Because we are in Christ, we already have every spiritual blessing in him (Eph. 1:3). When we see that God satisfies us with good, this good is first and foremost about the person of God through Christ. God alone is by nature good (Mark 10:18), and he alone can satisfy the deepest longings of my heart. He has promised good to me because he is true to his nature.
Ultimately, God displays the goodness of his character through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Hear the reminder in Romans 8:31: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” God longs to bless us and our children in deeper ways than we even know to ask.
God’s goodness is on God’s terms.
We often give lip-service to this scriptural truth that God is good, but we easily fall prey to the worldly god of our own felt experience.
Early on in my life as a parent, one of my children had some intense behavioral challenges. Every public gathering– at school, at church, with extended family, and even in the local park– stirred an undercurrent of anxiety in my child and if I’m honest, in me. Everything I thought about God’s goodness was challenged as my family struggled through years of what did not feel good.
Do you experience, or feel, that God is good? Often, if our experience does not appear to have congruence with the Word, we elevate experience above the Word. If we don’t see “evidence” of God’s promises at work in the way we want them to be, then we doubt God’s goodness. But God is good whether we experience, feel, or even believe it is so.
In her recent study on Judges, Paige Brown states, “We can claim God’s promises, we can hold God to his promises, but he is never bound to our expectations of how he is going to fulfill them.” God’s promises for me as a person and as a parent are true, but I do not get to dictate how that looks in my life. God has promised that he will not withhold anything good from me (Ps. 84:11), and he will fulfill his promise.
So the question becomes, “Do I know enough of him to rest in his methods?” In my case, God’s methods to bring me his goodness as a parent were painful, and I can see in retrospect, necessary. Before this hard season of parenting, I was far more self-reliant and prideful. God in his mercy gave me a deeper reliance on him and a deeper understanding of the love of Jesus through my inadequacy and failures to parent my child effectively. This time was truly painful, but I would not trade the goodness of knowing Jesus in and after the struggle for all the perfect play-dates in the world.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Prov. 3:5-6). We often want God to make our paths straight, (ie. give us good things on our terms) with little emphasis on the dependance described here. We must turn from evaluating the Lord on the basis of our own experience and understanding (“be not wise in your own eyes,” v.7), and instead submit our lives and evaluate our experiences through the lens of the unchangeable goodness of God.
God’s goodness will satisfy my soul.
Even in the midst of something painful, this is the promise: his goodness will satisfy my soul and renew my strength (103:5). Remember where we have just come from in the greater context of this psalm—God has rescued us from darkness through no merit of our own (v. 3-4). Will I choose now to submit to his care? The satisfaction that comes in Christ is the deep rest of trusting God and walking in dependency on him.
This challenges our self-reliance. We would rather feel good about our own efforts, but God requires that we lay down our ideas of “goodness” in exchange for the satisfaction of what is really good. All he asks of us is to come in our brokenness and receive.
Often in the midst of suffering we experience this well because God’s goodness is best seen and understood when we feel our dependency. When we are self-assured, how easy it is to say or think, “Thank you God for making me amazing! Look what I did!” When we are weak, it is clear to us and to others that God is our sustainer and source of life. This truth brings deep rest to my soul when I no longer have the need (or energy) to strive.
As we spent years working through my child’s challenges, I became more dependent on Christ as my source of validation rather than how I appeared as a parent to the world around me. My idols of self-reliance were laid bare so that I could repent and turn to the Lord for his help for my child. I also began to view other parents, especially those with difficult children, in a much more gracious way.
Years later, this child is flourishing, but the story doesn’t have a tidy bow. I am still learning to depend upon the Lord and to repent when I demand goodness based in my own understanding. Nevertheless, the lessons learned through that dark season testify to God’s goodness even when I don’t feel it.
Trust is a whole-person exercise.
The second half of this verse is admittedly hard for me! I’m more apt to feel like a turtle pushing through mud than a soaring eagle. But scripture shows that a person who is truly trusting in the Lord will not only experience deep satisfaction, but also renewed energy and strength. We experience the effects of trust internally, in our hearts and minds, as well as externally, in our physical bodies. While we are clearly subject to all the effects of the fall on our bodies, it is nonetheless true that an internal rest has great effect on physical rest as well.
When I am no longer restless, I sleep better, and I care for my whole person more effectively. (Ps. 4:8) And the inverse is true—caring for my bodily needs also creates space and conditions for my heart to grow in a restful posture toward the Lord. God’s goodness is meant for me more than just intellectually. He cares for my mind, my emotions, and my body.
God expects, and welcomes us, to come exhausted.
A final, and most important note— we can easily assume because we are exhausted, either physically or spiritually, that we must be doing something wrong. Remember the promise is that he will renew your strength and endurance in him. The verse assumes we will come to God tired in every way and that God will meet our needs. In fact, we must feel our need of him to know his goodness. The Lord longs to show us compassion when we submit to his care. This psalm will go on to remind us that he knows our frame, we are but dust….so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him (vs. 13-14).
In my story, embracing physical rest may have been the strongest barrier to receiving his goodness. It is easy to cope with emotional pain by doing more and pushing ourselves harder, becoming externally restless to mask internal turmoil. God has dealt so graciously with me in this area (even forcing me to physically slow down through a prolonged season of illness). I can testify that remembering our physical limitations before the Lord is a crucial part of caring for our souls. I would love the opportunity to sit with my younger self and remind her to deal gently with her body and receive help from the body of Christ.
So, as a fellow parent who is weary, I pray that God will give you and me the grace to depend on him more deeply today. May that dependence help us recognize his great goodness towards us and our children. May he restore your hope and energy as he sends you into the world, reminding you that his Spirit lives in you and is guiding you through every detail of your day and every interaction with your family. Amen.
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*Thank you to Paige Brown and Dr. Gordon Bals for faithful teaching that helped shape this article.
