Have you ever contemplated the first words of babies? As I sit in the quietness of the room while I write, I’m reminded of the “babbling” not just a few hours ago of my granddaughter Everleigh. Sometimes its just noises and cooing, but lately it has been the repeated uttering of the same word… da da da da da dad (much to the chagrin of her mom). As has been my experience, it’s just as often ma ma ma ma, with infants, but its rarely anything else. But it makes complete sense, in those early years, there is no one more important, more invested, nor more close than either their “mama” or “dada”. They are that babies world! It makes complete sense that their name would almost involuntarily be uttered!
Psalm 145:7 refers to a similar uttering of reflection on a holy, good, righteous God.
They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. Psalm 145:7. KJV
Meditating on this passage, this word “utter” is intriguing. The word is often also used as gush, flow out, bubble over, even burp. Yeah, that last one is gross, but the point is it is like kinetic energy, energy stored somewhere that cannot help but overflow from its confinement. The idea here is that the memories of all God’s goodness cannot be kept inside, but that it is regularly, uncontrollably, and abundantly revealed.
Has something ever happened to you that was so good, you could not wait to tell the people that you love the most? I believe it happens so much to us, that we take God’s goodness for granted, we are just used to it by now. That explains why during our times of prayer and praise we seem overwhelmed by the things that are prayer needs, with little put forth about God’s goodness, who He is and all He has done for us. We’ve just lost sight of it, we’ve literally forgotten it.
What would happen if we began to commit to memory throughout our day all the blessings we received of God’s goodness and focused less on the trials and difficulties. How would our day be different. What if we catalogued both the good and the bad? I wonder if the scale of good versus bad would ever tip towards the bad.
It’s amazing how such little bad can dictate how our day goes and overshadow all God’s goodness. If we could hold on to God’s goodness throughout the day, day after day, perhaps our babblings too would spill out in praise to God’s goodness, and to a constant song of praise to His righteousness. Maybe our focus on His goodness would draw us closer to Him in appreciation of Him so that we too, can’t help but involuntarily and a uncontrollably utter… ABBA da da da!
Dr. Ronald J. Barnes, Jr.
President/CEO
May 10, 2023
