God Is Not Really Good

I guess I should rephrase that. God is not really good as we would understand goodness. I hear people say it a LOT—usually precipitated by “someone paid for my Starbucks today. God is so good!” Or something about what nice thing God has done.
Even if it were something more severe, even if someone were cleared from cancer, would God cease to be good had He chosen (in his sovereignty) to let that person pass? Isn’t God good regardless of the situation?

God is good, yes. But not in the way the majority of people would think.

Have you ever been talking with someone about God when they say to you, “I just can’t believe there’s a God when there’s so much evil in the world.” However, God’s goodness is not an attribute he possesses, but a direct definition of himself. Or to quote my pastor, “He is not defined by attributes, but rather, He defines them.” We say “God is good” if someone pays for our Starbucks, if we’re healthy, or if we have money in the bank. But God’s goodness has nothing to do with our material (or immaterial) well-being or happiness. God is good because he defines what goodness is. God is not good because he does good things for us, and his goodness does not depend on my happiness or well being.

I was reminded a few months ago that God is much more concerned with his glory than he is with my happiness. Thankfully for me, my happiness is secured long-term when I live my life in glory to God, but God’s goal for me is never my happiness, and is always his glory.

I used to think that sounded selfish. Why would all mighty God be so self-centered? But let’s say you’re an NBA basketball player. Top notch, everyone loves you and wants to see you play. Then one day, a high school kid (who’s not talented at all) comes around and wants to join your team. Not only does he want to join your team, he actually thinks he’s good enough to be comparable to you. Not only would that be kind of annoying (like, who does this kid think he is), but at some point you might even feel bad for him. Here he is thinking he’s some hot shot, when he actually really sucks and is just embarrassing himself in front of everyone. No one would look at you and say “Wow, you’re so conceited because you think you’re a better basketball player than that kid.” You don’t have to be conceited to say that you are, as a fact, a better basketball player.

That’s kind of a horrible analogy, but for me it at least helps me understand a little bit how I should see God’s glory. We’re just these little kids who think we’re hot stuff when really God is the hot stuff. He is, as a fact, the only one worthy of Glory. Therefore, it is not conceited of him to say so or demand our acknowledgment of it.

C.S. Lewis in his book The Problem With Pain, said something to the effect of, “if we hear that God is a jealous God and are offended by that, then it is merely because we do not fully understand God and must change the way we view him.”

God defines goodness, not us. And he does not cease to be good when drought and famine occurs, or when a family member passes away, or when a house gets repossessed. We must simply change the way we, as finite human beings, understand what goodness means, and always look in life for what brings the most glory to God.

Soli Deo gloria,
Charity

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Venturing in Mammoth Cave

By charity sampley • 01 Aug, 2023

I've been trying to get to Mammoth Cave for 6 years and today I finally made it! Woohoo! I have a bucket list goal to visit every national park in the US (hopefully I can get to them faster because they just keep adding more), so there's another check mark to one! One of the things I've been realizing lately is just how many national parks are within 8 hours or less of where we're located. An 8-hour drive isn't too bad with the kids, and several are even closer. Mammoth Cave is about 1 hour from us (I know, it's almost wrong that we haven't gone before now). Prior to making the trip, I had looked on Pinterest for different recommendations and I had seen where the guided tours fill up quickly so it's best to register for them online before going. However, I decided that with the kids being the ages that they are, I didn't want to do a guided tour and would rather do the self-guided (called Discovery tour). I'm also not a big fan of guided tours anyway, but I did see some pictures of some cool views that you can only get to through a guided tour, so I think it would be worth it to do that one day. However, we spend 45 minutes in the cave, and I couldn't imagine spending any more time in there because the kids were about spent. I'm very content with the decision I made for this trip! All the information you'll need can be found on the national park website here . I had also read that the park is free to enter, but you have to pay for all the tours. This ended up being the case for us as well, even though we did the self-guided Discovery tour. It was a bummer because we have the annual national park pass, so I feel like we've already paid to enter all the parks for the year, but the tickets were only $8 a piece, and kids under 6 are free, so it wasn't expensive. As it turned out, I was very glad that we did the Discovery tour because the kids ended up being scared in the cave! We walked all the way down from one end to the other, but by the time we were leaving, they were definitely done with the cave. Killian is 2, and Reagan is 3, so if you have toddlers, I recommend just keeping that in mind when you choose the right option for you and your family.

I Finished My Nutrition Certification!

By charity sampley • 23 Jun, 2023

I hope your week is off to a great start. A couple of weeks ago, on a Friday morning, I woke up early (okay, not that early), opened my laptop, and took the final exam to my Precision Nutrition Certification. It has been, and continues to be, so important to me to be able to continue my education in order to better serve my clientele, formally or informally. This certification is just one more step on my journey to improve myself as a coach and expert in the field of nutrition. I started it back in October, and continued to work through it during all the phases of life with two toddlers: sleep regressions, meltdowns, potty training, and all the things in between. At times it felt like I was never going to finish, and just like that I'm done, and it didn't seem all that rough! 😅 Soon after finishing, I decided to register for an NLP and Life Coaching certification, and who knows what else is in store. The sky's the limit!

Why I Started Coaching

By charity sampley • 16 Jun, 2023

I didn't grow up being athletic, in fact, it was the opposite for me. When it came to races or playing tag, I was always the slowest. When it came to a sport, I was always uncoordinated. When it came to body weight strength, I was the weakest. When it came to being picked for a team, I was always picked last. Throughout high school and college, I managed to improve this predicament slightly as I played sports, began training on my own, and eventually made it onto my college basketball team. But I still always struggled. I always tended to be the most uncoordinated and the least athletic. When I started CrossFit in 2018, I was surprised at how my body adapted to the training. With what I felt like little effort on my part, I was able to do pull-ups and skills I had given up on ever having the ability to do. It taught me that everything is learned for everyone at some point in time, and we all have the ability to change what we've known about ourselves even if what we've known to be true about ourselves is something that has haunted us since childhood. While it was amazing that I could change my ability to perform physical movements, it wasn't until I improved my nutrition in 2019 and began to see the start of a 6 pack (which genetically speaking, wasn't really in the cards for me) that I started to truly realize how every decision we make and every step we take is an action either in the direction of what we want or what we don't want, but either way, we have the ability to choose in any given moment. Often times our ability to choose is determined by the beliefs we have about ourselves and about our circumstances. I think what shocked me the most is that I wasn't doing what I had always thought would be required in order to see these big physical changes. I was leaning out while eating ice cream sandwiches, chips, and fast food. And it wasn't just on my "cheat days" either. Although my diet was balanced, it didn't fit what I always believed I would need to do. It didn't fit m idea of "healthy" and it definitely didn't fit into most of society's definition of healthy. Most people would have assumed this was my way of having a "cheat meal", or that I was allowing myself to "be bad". But neither were the case. This was simply my way of life. And I was seeing amazing results with a very flexible approach to my diet. If we believe it's our calling in life to be fat, or weak, or slow, or addicted to food (all of which I believed about myself at one time), then those beliefs are what we'll live by. Those beliefs are what will dictate our choices. When I realized it was a choice for me to live in food freedom, and eat from a place of celebration and joy over how I can live my life and how my body can perform physically, that's when everything changed. I want all women who are where I once was to know that if they want to see change, then it's possible. But I don't want to just tell you. And I don't want to just show you. I want to help you get there. And that's why I started coaching. I started for you, and for all the women out there who are living a life making choices they're not happy with, in a body they're not happy in, but who don't want to sell their souls in order to see results. I'm here to tell you that there is freedom on the other side.

God Is Not Really Good