Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church, likes to regularly say that God is in a good mood. As I continued to think about the last post about our God being a playful God, I have come back to think about this idea. Is God always in a good mood?
It would be definitely be scary to have a God that is in a bad mood. Good thing for us that God is holy and cannot be in a bad anything. But thinking practically we are called to be like God. Therefore anything we are asked to do or be, God and/or Jesus is that perfectly.
- We are called to be holy. Check, He is definitely that.
- We are to forgive others. Check, He has done that for us.
- We are to be loving, kind, and truthful. Check. Check. Check.
- We are to submit ourselves to one another. Again, check. He submits His will of all coming to repentance to the will of each individual who may want to run from Him. (Wow… that feels like a separate blog post.)
With regards to this post, we are called to rejoice always (Philippians 4:4). Therefore God must be the perfect example of being joyful. And, if He is always joyful, He must always be in a good mood. QED!
What about all the evils in the world? Can God really be in a good mood with all the wars, genocide, human trafficking, racism, drugs, poverty, scandals, the recent tsunami in Japan, etc?
Can God really be in a good mood when my pastor has an affair, my spouse abuses our kids, I can’t pay my bills, my heart is broken, etc?
YES! Because God is in the business of changing lives. He redeems all things to such a degree it is completely better than before the bad things happened (Romans 8:28, Isaiah 61:7, etc). He sees the bad events and says, “I’ve got something so great, you won’t remember the pain. Can I show it to you? Let me redeem this. I love you so much.”
Take God all of your bad situations and ask for your redemptions. Trust Him to provide. Look. Be watchful and expectant. God is good. God is always in a good mood.