“It’s all good!”
This is a statement that was widely used by many to mean anything BUT “It’s all good!”
As defined by Urban Dictionary, it is a platitude that covers so many emotions and situations but actually it says little; its only real meaning is that the speaker is trying to rise above whatever problem exists, without expressing their underlying negative emotions.
For instance the speaker might be angry, sad, upset, frustrated, hurt, disappointed, etc., but instead of communicating those things, they just simply say, “It’s all good.”
At one point my daughter and I were discussing some relationship she found herself in where it just didn’t seem to be moving in a healthy direction. We were discussing her options/opportunities and the conversation began getting pretty deep. Layne is not nearly as “emotional” as I am (I’m at the polar end of the emotion spectrum!) so all of a sudden, while we were in the middle of the conversation she piped in with, “Oh, it’s all good.” (Which to her meant the conversation was over.)
Now, I found that extremely disconcerting. We were in the middle of a great, poignant conversation on growing up, etc. but all of a sudden “it was all good!”
I reminded her that it couldn’t be a situation of disappointment/pain in one literal second and then “it’s all good” the next. Therefore, it mustn’t be “all good” and perhaps whether I was involved or not, she should continue to process her emotions/thoughts/feelings (she loves having me as a mom).
To truly learn to live in God, God’s love, and God’s love as revealed in Christ and supplied through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit we must give up our right to decide “what is good and evil on our own terms.” (p. 139)
That is difficult to swallow but what we must do is learn to trust God and rest in God’s inherent goodness.
Jesus led the way with this as Jesus did not hold on to any rights. Jesus willingly became a servant and lived out of his relationship with God.
Jesus GAVE UP everything . . . not was forced to, but willingly GAVE IT ALL UP so that by his dependent life he would open a door that allows us to live freely enough to give up our rights.
In The Shack we hear Jesus put it this way, “I came to give you life, real life, my life. We will come and live our life inside you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do.”
Perhaps we stop trying to claim things as “all good” (or bad for that matter) and we no longer focus on classifying. Instead we focus on living. And seeing. And hearing. And touching. And thinking. In the ways of Christ . . .
11-14 “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see-these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.” John 14:11-14