IN Ecclesiastes we read, "Every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God." How many times we have heard it said that an enjoyable situation, an unexpected gift, a long period of good health or remarkable success, seemed too good to be true! Such a statement has behind it a hint of superstition, an implication that good may be variable or reversed. It would seem to point to some other power than God, to something over which He has no control, to some power which can stop or turn away from us our good.
The Anglo-Saxon term for God is '"good." The Bible tells us in unmistakable language that God is good. In James we read, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." How absolutely faithful and true is our God, who created all thingsgood, who made man in His own image and likeness, and gave him dominion over all! From cover to cover the Bible emphasizes and illustrates God's goodness, showing that when men trusted Him, His promises of good never failed. Then, if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, good is the only power and presence, the Mind that knows all things, and nothing but good. Certainly such good cannot be other than eternal. It cannot possibly be reversed and become evil; and it cannot be too good to be true.
When the prodigal son, searching for happiness in material pleasures and luxuries, found them profitless and fleeting, and, truly humble and repentant, turned toward his father's house, he found all as he had left it — his place waiting for him, his ring and robe restored to him, and quantities of good things prepared for his home-coming. Nothing but a false sense of what constitutes wealth, health, and happiness had obscured his viewpoint and seemingly reversed his inheritance of good. When once he had awakened from the dream, thrown off the mesmerism of false sense testimony, and turned toward God, he found good waiting for him just as it had always been.
