The Goodness of the Lord
Moses asked to see the glory of the LORD and God made all his goodness pass before him. When the invisible God becomes perceptible to others.
Airton Humber · 27/08/26 · 3 min de leitura
Moses made an extraordinary request:
“Show me your glory.”
And the LORD's answer is perhaps even more extraordinary:
“I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim my name, the LORD.”
Moses asked to see the glory.
The LORD made his goodness pass before him.
Maybe there is a very simple clue here for knowing him.
The love we do not see
God is love.
But love is invisible.
We cannot see it directly. It needs to become perceptible, noticeable, to reach the other.
Paul calls it the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Maybe we can look at this sequence not just as a list of independent qualities, but as a process of formation, without claiming that Paul is setting out stages, only paying attention to the order in which he placed the words.
It all begins in love.
Love reaches us and produces joy.
Joy finds rest in peace.
And when that peace crosses time, difficulty and relationships, patience appears.
Until evil reaches us.
That is where the fruit begins to be tested in our relationship with the other.
The oyster and the pearl
An oyster offers a very beautiful image.
When something hurts it, it does not simply throw it back. It wraps it, layer after layer.
That is how kindness can be.
We receive something that hurts, but it does not have to pass through us and come out of us the same way it came in.
Kindness wraps around the evil received.
And then goodness appears.
Goodness is like the pearl: what we finally offer to the world.
We do good, we receive evil and we keep doing good.
Paul wrote:
“Do not let yourselves be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
And also:
“God's goodness leads you to repentance.”
Maybe it is precisely in goodness that invisible love begins to become perceptible to the other.
He remains faithful
But the process does not end there.
To keep doing good after receiving evil is faithfulness.
“If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”
Our unfaithfulness does not make God become unfaithful.
What we do against him does not determine who he will be.
He remains faithful.
Faithfulness is good remaining good even after receiving evil.
And this faithfulness to the path gradually tames us.
We arrive at gentleness.
Until this taming reaches even our reactions that are hardest to control.
We arrive at self-control.
James says that whoever does not stumble in speech is a mature man, able to bridle the whole body as well.
Maybe one of the last places where the evil received needs to stop governing our response is precisely the tongue.
Someone hurts us.
The word reaches us.
But it no longer needs to find our mouth available to continue its journey.
Evil can stop with us.
The other cheek
And then maybe we can hear in a different way one of Jesus' hardest words:
“If anyone strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other also.”
Maybe offering the other cheek is more than simply enduring another aggression.
It is not allowing the face of the one who hurt me to determine the face I will show him.
He shows me anger.
I do not have to become anger.
He shows me contempt.
I do not have to become contempt.
He shows me malice.
I do not have to give back its image.
I can offer another face.
The face of Christ
Paul speaks of Christ, who is the image of God.
And he also speaks of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
God is invisible.
God is love.
But something of this invisible God can become visible in a face that keeps offering goodness even after receiving evil.
And then we can also hear the words of Jesus:
“Let them see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
They see.
Goodness has become perceptible.
But the glory does not end with the one who did the good.
The Father is glorified.
Maybe that is why the LORD's answer to Moses is so beautiful:
“Show me your glory.”
“I will make all my goodness pass before you.”
The love we did not see became goodness that someone could experience.
And maybe that is what begins to happen to us when the fruit of the Spirit is being formed.
We receive evil and we do not give back its image.
Kindness wraps around it.
Goodness offers the good.
Faithfulness remains.
Gentleness keeps transforming us.
Self-control reaches even our tongue.
And maybe, in that other face, something of the face of Christ begins to appear.
The goodness of the invisible God becoming perceptible to the other.
And the Father is glorified.
Bible references:
Exodus 33:18–19; Exodus 34:5–7; Matthew 5:16, 39; Romans 2:4; Romans 12:21; Galatians 5:22–23; 2 Timothy 2:13; James 3:2–6; 2 Corinthians 4:4–6; Colossians 1:15; 1 John 4:8,12.
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