A while back I challenged myself to document for one hundred days in a row the “goodness of the Lord.” My initial intent was to become more aware of God’s day-to-day provision. Besides being a feast for my soul, actively looking for goodness quickened my gratitude response and drew me deeper still in my walk with the Lord.

As I began looking intentionally for God’s goodness each day, I saw His provision for me in increasing measure. In fresh and abundant ways I saw more clearly my needs being met by what God supplied. This is an excellent practice! So yes, amen, and thank you God.

Approximately 1/3 of the way through my one hundred day journey, however, the focus of my project shifted. One morning I heard a pastor say, “The source of goodness is the Shepherd,” and I realized I had gotten too fixated over looking for goodness and was missing, in a sense, the Giver of goodness.

C.S. Lewis said something brilliant. The pastor’s words that morning reminded me of one of Lewis’ profound word pictures about sunbeams of light and following them back to their source, the sun.
Lewis said, “Gratitude exclaims… ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.”

The first few days of my looking for goodness challenge, I splashed around in shallow water. I jotted down that I was grateful for my cat Janie, the piece of chocolate cake that I enjoyed, and the stunning field of wild daisies that I delighted in gazing upon.

Not too much later, I was waist-deep in being grateful to the Giver of all the good things beyond cats and cake that I was journaling about.

Then at a very sweet point in my challenge of looking for the goodness of God, I found myself swimming in the deepest, most tranquil waters of adoration of the Giver of all good things.

For sure, it is good and right to be thankful for good things. And yes, so importantly, being grateful toward the Giver of those good things. But vital is our heart posture: adoration of Jesus, our Good Shepherd.
Let’s seek together to adore Him more and more, not just as the giver of good stuff, but as the ultimate source of all goodness.