“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.”

Our future rests entirely on the goodness of God. In Mark 10, the rich man addresses Jesus as “good” teacher. He then proceeds to ask Jesus how a person can inherit eternal life. There is an implicit connection between Jesus’ “goodness” and the hope of eternal life.

On the surface, it seems like an honourable question. This man wanted a place in God’s kingdom. The problem lay in where the man sought to locate goodness. “What must I do?” he asked. He figured his future rested on his ability.

Psalm 106 draws our attention to the goodness of God and our absolute need for it. He does not withhold his goodness to the confines of his own being. It radiates from him in waves of enduring love and flows out to his people for their well-being, even amidst their failings.

It is fitting for us to take our lead from God’s goodness and, by his Spirit, seek to emulate it. But we must never usurp God’s goodness by seeking to trust in our own over and above his. Ultimately, our place in his kingdom comes by trusting in the goodness he has revealed to us in Christ.

I pray our marriage will derive its goodness from Jesus. I pray we will help each other continue to find comfort, strength and joy in his goodness and that together we will continue to trust in his good word of promise in the gospel. Because as Mark 10 finishes:

“No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”