Day 15: Prayers for Goodness

"But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer." Psalm 66:19

{Sorry for dropping the ball yesterday! We had an out of town wedding, and time just completely got away from me before it was time to leave. I hope that you continued to pray over your sons yesterday even though there wasn't a specific "topic" to pray over. I know I could have written the post on a previous day and just scheduled it to post, but I have really enjoyed typing out my thoughts as I am doing my daily prayer for my sons, so I hope you forgive me for missing a day and being so late on this post as well. Typing it out as I pray is also keeping me accountable to participating along in the challenge!}

Day 15: Goodness

"Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." Psalm 23:6

Interestingly, apart from the scripture referencing the Fruits of the Spirit I could not find a verse that spoke of men and goodness. It was always used in reference to God. Now there may be a verse here and there that I am not aware of and just could not find reference to, but I guess the point is that even if there are one or two not well-known verses referencing it, there are many, many Scriptures referencing the "Goodness of God". Kindness and Goodness. How are they two separate things? It sounds confusing at first, and honestly even after learning about the differences and the similarities in my Bible Study last year, I probably even lumped the definition of goodness in with kindness the other day. Kindness is our emotions towards someone, our feelings of love and mercy. Goodness is our actions toward someone, actions that are driven by kindness.

Scriptures reference over and over and over how the goodness of God flows over His people. How His goodness covers His dealings with them. I pray the same thing over our sons. If the fruits of the Spirit are the evidence of the Lord in our life, and the abundance of fruit a sign of our relationship with Him, then we should show the same goodness to others as God does. I love how the fruits are things that are impossible for us to do in our own power, that these seemingly "simple" emotions and feelings, actions and reactions, can come from nowhere other than our relationship with God. I suppose it is only fitting then that since God is the only one who is truly good, that that is the only goodness the Scriptures reference. I pray that our sons will model this goodness in their actions. That their feelings of kindness would overflow into their every day dealings with people, and that there will never be any question where this goodness has come from.

Lord, I pray for the goodness of my sons. God, I pray that your Spirit would overflow in them, that it would pour out in every word, every action. I pray that they will treat everyone with love and mercy, that these feelings would drive every action. I pray that every single reference to your goodness will be fulfilled by them. That there will be no question where their goodness is coming from. Lord, I pray that you will indwell in their exceedingly wicked hearts and turn them into beating hearts of flesh. I pray that they will have a heart full of love, of joy, of mercy. A heart of pure goodness...