Thank God for His Goodness

“Preserve me, O Lord, for in You I take refuge.  I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from You.’…The Lord is my Chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.  The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance…You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” –Psalm 16:1-2, 5-6, 11 (ESV.  Read Psalm 16).

When the faithful sing the words of this “miktam of David,”(then and now)  a musical tribute to God, they proclaim that they are entrusting themselves to God’s goodness.  They are relying on His known faithfulness and expressing confidence in His continuing provision.  The writer of the Psalm used imagery from the division of the land (verses 5-6) to express contentment about getting land in the division of the Holy Land to the twelve tribes.  But it is not just contentment in this life where they have received “a beautiful inheritance” for which they are grateful.  The thanksgiving extends for the counsel God provides.  It includes  gratitude for life beyond this physical realm, where the soul will not be “abandoned in Sheol.”  And the Psalmist also expresses grateful confidence that God will continue “to make known to me the path of life.”  We don’t have to grovel and wonder which way leads to God.  God’s goodness covers guidance, available to all who seek it.  And with this confidence of God’s presence comes “pleasures forevermore.”

I have just returned from a week in the beautiful mountains of North Georgia.  While there, I drove by, and at times even walked upon land that fits the description the Psalmist gave in 16:6.  In beautiful valleys which they cleared, and hillsides on which they built barns and houses, my ancestors settled in a beautiful section of North Georgia in the early 1830s.  They received land grants earned, in a sense, by their patriotic service in the Revolutionary War.  They also bought land, extending their holdings to goodly-sized mountain farms where they continued to improve the land.  They worked to establish churches, to found schools, to establish local governments.  Indeed, they established and left for succeeding generations “a beautiful inheritance.”  Now the landscape has changed.  Many of the old homesteads are long since gone with the ravages of time and decay.  No longer do large fields stretch out along river and creek bottoms where  ancestors once plied their hard work in agricultural pursuits.  A change came, and the land itself became the drawing card for new generations as large acreages were sold off for subdivisions of various sorts.  Much of the land has been used to attract tourists and to provide housing and entertainment for visitors to the mountains.  But occasionally, still, a peaceful pasture stretches over a hillside and cattle graze in graceful contentment.  Occasionally in tawny fall colors a mown hayfield meets the eye, with well-bundled bales of hay awaiting transfer to barns to provide winter food for livestock.  Or the remnants of a cornfield, the full ears hanging from the stalks in nature’s protective shucks, await the harvester.  As I drove by familiar yet changed landscapes, I remembered growing up as a child on the farm—different in landscape then to now—but a place where we felt blessed and provided for because of God’s goodness.  I am grateful that early in life my parents taught me the value of gratitude, of praising God for His goodness.

“Count your blessings, name them one by one.”  And thank God for His goodness.