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

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope…I Peter 1:3

Like the stars in the sky, there is no variation in God’s character. He is infinitely good. He is fixed in his divine nature and character. Because God is good, God can only give what is good, even sometimes when wrapped in harsh packages like trials, because ultimately we know in the midst of it God is working something out in these trials.

He’s seeking to produce in us something we could not produce on our own, and that is a maturity…a steadfastness, a sense of weaning ourselves from our own self-reliance so we can cling to Christ for his sufficiency in all things; that we’d get more of Christ in the midst of this so that the power of God would be manifest in our weakness. [1]  (“…rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…1 Peter 1: 6-7)

My prayer today has been, “Lord, I believe but help my unbelief and my heart to see that you are good all of the time. Heal and free me from my unbelief. Believing that you really want us, desire us, and enjoy us is almost too much to take in. That you have caused us to be born into a living hope…to an inheritance that is imperishable. The fact that you love us with an everlasting love and lavish more and more grace upon us seems impossible, and tragically, at times not enough. When I am distracted, deceived, and drawn away from the wonders of your love and forget this living hope and your goodness, everything else is affected. Help me to love you more with unfettered abandon, to treasure this living hope, to be thankful–with a confident expectation that you are good all of the time.”

A living hope is a confident expectation that God is good.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  (I Peter 1:3-8 ESV)

[1] Our Hope in Trials: Shea Sumlin;  http://www.thevillagechurch.net/sermon/our-hope-in-trials/