Our circumstances don't determine if god is good or bad

​In addition to having the boys every other weekend, I take them to dinner one night a week. Those dinners can be hard.

I know our time together will be brief. I know I'll be dropping them off in short order and then driving home without them. That's been the one area of all this that does not get better with time.

The thing is - I know these are their circumstances as well - not just mine. In the middle of those dinners, I have found myself wondering - do they think I'm a bad dad because of those circumstances?

I wonder if they know in this situation there were no great circumstances to choose from, but that I've ultimately chosen the one I think will be best for them.

If not today - in the long run.

I wonder if they can see through the circumstances and see someone trying to be a good dad.

Here's what I've also been wondering this week.

I wonder if God's been wondering that about me. I wonder if God is wondering if I can see through my circumstances - to Him - and see a good God doing the best thing for me.

Today AND in the long run.

I wonder if God is hoping that I recongize, sometimes there are no good circumstances to choose from. But through all of them, he is always wanting me to see the good in him.

And maybe even as much, through all of them, he is trying to help me see and feel the good he sees in me.

I guess I have an advantage over my boys in this regard.

I have a history dotted with challenging circumstances. I have reference points all over the decades that I can look back on and see a God I thought was bad was actually good.

Maybe that's how it will go with my boys.

Maybe one day they'll look back on those dinners and on me like I look back on my dotted past and God. Maybe they'll look back and say, I get what he was up to there. And it wasn't bad.

For now, I lean into the hope that is knowing God is good. All the time. No matter what the circumstances.

And me? I'm just trying to follow his lead. All the time. No matter what the circumstances.

Because our circumstances don't get to determine if God is good or bad. God does that. And he has been SO SO good......