God is in a Good Mood

What we see when we look at God decides how we live our lives.

About eight years ago, I took my first trip to South Africa and taught on what I call “The Four Most Important Things”. If you’re familiar with that teaching, you know that number one on the short list is, “God is in a Good Mood.” There was a young man in that audience who reached out to me recently (8 years later) and shared how much his life changed from hearing that. 

He said it laid a foundation in him that has since caused him to run to God instead of away from Him. Even when he messes up, he knows God is in a good mood. He said God became a safe place for him to turn to.

I haven’t always got this response though when I teach on God being in a good mood. Many people often think I’m saying He can’t get hurt, upset, or angry. None of that is true, and comes from an incomplete understanding of the word “mood.”

The word mood can be defined as “The emotional state from which a person acts.” In other words, if a person’s actions are good, it can be said they are in a good mood. In the same way, if a person’s actions are bad, they are in a bad mood.

We know (and have no problem telling our friends during hard times) that “God causes all things to work together for good (Rom 8:28)”. That means He steps into bad situations and turns them good. His actions are good no matter how bad things seem. Because God is consistent in doing good, it reveals He is consistently in a good mood.

The Old Testament equivalent for Rom 8:28 is Jeremiah 32:40, which says “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

Good is all He does. He won’t do anything else. His goodness has no off switch. His actions remain good even if we’ve caused Him temporary pain or anger. The fear of God comes into our hearts when we know this, and the true fear of God makes us stay close to Him, not run away.

The best part, however, is in the next verse (Jer. 32:41), “I rejoice to do them good.” So God will not turn from doing us good, and doing us good (not us doing good for Him) causes Him to rejoice.

So to wrap it all up nicely: God is in a good mood (a good emotional state), which causes Him to do good for us no matter the situation, and doing good for us makes Him rejoice. Even when we’ve done things to Him to cause Him pain or anger, He does good things for us to cause Himself joy.

I guess all that's left now is for us to check and see whether we need to readjust what we see when we look at God.