No matter what happens in your life, you can always trust God to bring you the highest possible good from it.

Let’s meditate on one of the sweetest of all truths about God’s love: His constant, capable, and inexhaustible benevolence.

That benevolence is summed up in one of the most quoted verses in the Bible: “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28, ESV). Another translation says, “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God” (NAU).

The Old Testament expression of that idea is: “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

Or, “‘I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11, NAU).

Or, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6).

Or, “Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant!” (Psalm 35:27).

These are just a few of the verses that express the meaning of the long Latin word benevolence, which comes from two Latin words: bene, which means well, coupled with volantem, which is a form of the word for wish. So it means well-wishing, goodwill. The Lord wills what is good for you. A wonderful truth like this deserves a big word like benevolence. God’s capable, constant, and inexhaustible desire for you is for good to come to you.

God’s benevolence is capable

By the word capable I mean that he is able to pull it off. He can make good happen—really, really, really make it happen. No one is more capable of producing good than God. He doesn’t just wish good for us but lack the power to bring it about, like an agonized father sitting in the bleachers watching his daughter perform in a high school gymnastics meet. God showed what he can do in Genesis 1, “and it was good.” He showed his power to bring good when he made Joseph vice pharaoh of Egypt, Ruth the wife of Boaz, Solomon king of Israel, Mary the mother of Jesus, Abraham the father of all who believe, and Mary Magdalene the first to see the risen Christ. God has all the skill, power, authority, desire, and wisdom necessary to bring maximum good—indeed, infinite good—to his children.

And because he loves us, that’s what he’s doing, today and always, even when we don’t recognize it as good because in this fallen world all followers of Christ suffer. We’ll recognize God’s goodwill fully when we get to the New Creation and receive our rewards.

God’s benevolence is constant

God’s benevolence is also constant, unceasing, without interruption. Yesterday, out of the 86,400 seconds in your day, there was not one second when God wavered in his goodwill toward you, when he felt ill-will, not one heartbeat. Over the course of 2018, out of the roughly 31,536,000 seconds in your year, there will not have been one, split second when God had ill-will toward you, not one blink of the eye. His goodwill is constant, unceasing, without interruption, like water over Niagara Falls.

I look into my own heart and think about my benevolence toward my sons. Even though my heart is fallen and selfish, I can say there has not been one moment when my goodwill toward them wavered, when I wanted something bad to happen to them—and I am but a weak and sinful human. If a human father is like that, think of God’s constant benevolence.

God’s benevolence is inexhaustible

Even Niagara Falls can someday run dry. It is subject to earth’s ever-changing climate and topography. But God does not change. He is love and will always be love. He is good, he does care for us, and he will always be so. Even the oceans could eventually be emptied of their 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water, but you cannot empty God of his benevolence. His goodwill literally has no limit. Take out 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of benevolence from the heart of God, and there would still be 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of benevolence remaining.

For all eternity we will keep drinking from the sweet fountain of his benevolence, and it will never lose its pleasures.

Benevolent love

Earlier this year I played a game of Chutes and Ladders with my grandson Charlie, who at the time was 4-years-old. Chutes and Ladders is a board game in which you roll dice and move your marker along a path toward a goal. The first player to reach the goal wins. Simple, except that you can land on squares that put you on a ladder that advances you forward several levels and you can also land on squares sending you down a chute that sets you back several layers. You can also land on squares that give you a card that helps or hurts you.

Of course Charlie wanted to win. I also wanted Charlie to win. There was not one bone in my body that wanted Charlie to lose that game, and there was no way he was going to lose that game because no matter what Charlie rolled, with my help things turned out well for him. And no matter what I rolled, I made sure that in the end the grandson I love won the game and had a fun time.

In the same way, no matter what numbers you roll in life, God is making sure that you win in the end.

“We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

That’s benevolent love.