God is good.....ALL the time.

God is so good to me. I feel like I have this violence going on inside me and I feel so far from where God wants me to be, yet He sees my pain and feels it with me and knows what I need to pull out of it. I don't understand it completely, and I think part of the wonder of it is that I'll never understand it. How does Satan know me so well? How can he have such a destructive plan for me? And is there anything scarier than knowing that the master of evil and the father of lies has a plan for my life? I'm always amazed when something just "happens" and it's exactly what I need, and I'm always amazed, too, when the devil gets in there and steers me away from the very things I need so badly. Even when I'm being led away from Him, though, God can reach me. I feel so confused so much of the time, not knowing what to believe and what to ignore, and it's so hard sometimes to know what to think. When I just look, though, the answer is obvious - like the difference between night and day. I read this morning in Matthew 6 that our eyes are lamps for our souls, and that if they are pure they will let sunshine into our hearts. That hit me hard, and even more so was what it said after that - that if our eyes are evil, focused on the bad things, they'll plunge us into darkness until we think the darkness we're in IS light, and convinces us that where we are is as good as it gets. That is hopelessness. That is depression. That is misery, and that is exactly where he wants me to be. Thank God that He has a plan for me that has nothing to do with darkness.....except in the darkness of night, when He again reminds me of His majesty in the stars and the moon and the chirping of the crickets..... How can He be so real to me in moments like this and so elusive in my most desperate moments? It reminds me of the poem about the footprints in the sand. I guess we just have to know where to look. I thank God that I can look at my friends and be pointed right back to Him.