WINSDAY WISDOM Session 208
Our four-year-old granddaughter, Madisyn, said to my wife, “Babe, I love you.”
Vicki asked, “How much do you love me? To a thousand?”
Madi responded with arms outstretched, “No, to infinity and beyond!”
The “infinity, and beyond” phrase originated as a quote in the 1990s animated movie Toy Story. Regardless of the source, it is a powerful and dramatic expression of love or happiness.
How happy are you? What is your largest happiness number? To infinity and beyond?
Are you happy? Why? Why not?
What if your happiness could be described as “to infinity and beyond??
Our search for some Winsday Wisdom about happiness can be found right at the beginning of the #1 Textbook. It reveals things to us about before the beginning and beyond infinity.
God created us as the everlasting expression of His great immeasurable LOVE in order that we might experience the endless inexhaustible ever-increasing enjoyment of His GOODNESS.
God’s revelation of human history is the story of God’s goodness to us.
The Book of Genesis begins with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”
Only God is infinite, limitless, beyond boundaries, beyond measure, beyond comprehension. The Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth, repeatedly describes Himself as infinite in power, dominion, and understanding. God is almighty, present-everywhere, knowing-everything (#1Textbook).
The Creator God describes Himself with three metaphorical names in the last verses of the #1 Textbook. “I am the Alpha and the Omega…I am the First and the Last…I am the Beginning and the End.”
The Lord is eternal in existence, nature, and being…from all eternity past to all eternity future. In the beginning of earthly time, God created the heavens and the earth.
The purpose of everything that God created was to display His goodness to mankind. Then God created man to be the expression and enjoyment of His goodness.
In Genesis, Chapter 2, God created man out of the dust and breathed life into him and placed man in a perfect paradise to enjoy the goodness of God. God related to mankind, one-to-one, face-to-face, and introduced Himself as (1) our LORD GOD, (2) our LIFE-GIVER, and (3) our LOVING PARTNER.
LORD- -That’s the way God still introduces Himself to us. He’s the Lord. He’s supreme. He’s sovereign, He’s the Creator, He’s the controller of everything, He is first and foremost. He is before everything else and above everything else. He is the Lord.
LIFE-GIVER– God introduced Himself to the first man and to us that He’s also the Life-Giver. He built man as His own handiwork and breathed His life into man.
God is the One who is all the goodness, possesses all the goodness, and can do all the goodness. He wants us, who are nothing and were nothing and have nothing and can do nothing, to be the beneficiary of all His goodness. “For we are God’s masterpeice, created to enjoy and do good” (#1 Textbook).
LOVING PARTNER– Then God introduced Himself as our Loving Partner—that we would be in union with Him—that the one God, the Lord, who created everything, would be in union with man who was nothing. The One who owned everything, the One who could do everything would be in union with the one who owned nothing and could do nothing apart from God.
God chose to be our Loving Partner for the purpose of giving all that He is and all that He has to mankind so that we might learn to live and love like God.
The Creator God offers us a loving partnership in which the only responsibility for any man or woman is to stay a partner. Nothing else is expected of us except what God has given us to maintain the essence of the partnership: Faith, Hope, and Love.
- God gives us FAITH. The God who has created everything for the expression and the enjoyment of His goodness is forever faithful and true. He promises never to forsake us. Trust the Lord God to stay your Loving Partner.
- God gives us HOPE. God creates and orchestrates all things for our ultimate enjoyment of His immeasurable goodness. God has connected His sovereign Lordship to our everlasting goodness. Live in Hope, the confident expectation of experiencing all the good God has promised…somehow…someway…sometime.
- God gives us LOVE. We can love God and others with the same great love God shows us. Imitate God and walk in love as His loving partner.
The Genesis account teaches us “what” and “how” God does us good. The only “why” is hidden in God’s great love. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us while we were still dead in our transgressions, made us alive with Christ” (#1 Textbook).
God promised to do us good with all His heart, all His soul, all His mind, and all His strength. Even when everything looks dark, God is working for our good in the midst of that darkness. When things look confusing and chaotic, God is still working for our good. Even when we are asleep, God continues to work for our good.
Psalm 16:11 says, “You will show me the path of life, for in Your presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forever.
Every new breath is a new opportunity for a new beginning to walk in life and happiness and goodness, not to dwell on past failure. The 23rd Psalm ends, “Surely the Lord’s goodness and mercy pursue me and follow me all the days of my life.”
That’s reality. Whenever your mind races away with imaginary thoughts that you are not happy or not blessed, something real is going on. God is chasing you down like a hunting dog after its prey. God is pursuing you with greater goodness.
God is our LORD. No one and No thing can delay or stop Him from doing you endless good.
God is our LIFE-GIVER. His gift of endless goodness is as eternal as His gift of life.
God is our LOVING PARTNER. He is forever faithful and true in life, death, and beyond into the eternity of endless goodness.
Here is some Winsday Wisdom. You do not have to try harder to find happiness. Just be more thankful as you enjoy the unearned and undeserved, endless goodness of God.
Like the waves of the ocean incessantly crashing on the shore, one upon another, so shall the waves of God’s endless goodness come in this life until they sweep you into the next life where it will take endless ages for God to show you His immeasurable, inexhaustible, infinite goodness.
If you focus on your circumstances or unfulfilled wishes, then you will drown in unhappiness. Why not look for God’s happiness headed your way? Check in at the Lost and Found desk.
The waves of God’s happiness will roll into your life in endless succession, everlasting, ever-increasing.
That is right. Everlasting and ever-increasing in goodness. Everlasting and ever-increasing in your capacity to enjoy.
The God of extravagant goodness. The God of immeasurable goodness. The God of generous goodness. The God of inexhaustible goodness. The God of endless goodness.
Every moment and every breath of eternity will be new and fresh with greater enjoyment of more of His goodness.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (no matter how much or how long) are not worth comparing with the glory of God’s goodness that is to be revealed to us (#1 Textbook).
EVER-INCREASING HAPPINESS TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!
In a future session, we will consider how we minimize and miss this great happiness in our daily lives. How and why do we seem to lose happiness?
Until then, be thankful the Heavenly Hound of Goodness chased you down and caught you.
Let me conclude with this Winsday Wisdom encouragement:
God created you as the everlasting expression of His great immeasurable LOVE in order that you might experience the endless inexhaustible ever-increasing enjoyment of His GOODNESS…“to infinity and beyond.”
Surely, God’s goodness and mercy pursue you all the days of your life, and you will live in the endless enjoyment of that everlasting, ever-increasing goodness forever and ever.
Enjoy some happiness today.
I love you and God loves you…to infinity and beyond!
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 