God’s Good Hand

Oct 22, 2025

Choose your own outcome: God’s protection or His fierce wrath

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“The good hand of our God is on everyone who is seeking him, but his great anger is against everyone who forsakes him.”

Ezra 8:22b (NET)

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This is a kind of reality check for me.

For sure, I want to be in the first group (where God’s good hand is on me) and not the second group (where God’s wrath is against me).

How wonderful it is to be under the protection of our good God!

This gives me confidence in my daily life.

I was once talking to my dad about how I handle sales calls as a freelancer. One of the mental realities of dealing with making a sale is that you must appear as if you have no need for the sale, even if you actually desperately need the money.

It’s because that neediness bleeds into the conversation. It almost physically stinks of putrid garbage. Most people can sense the neediness (almost smell it) even if they don’t know what the stink actually is.

Anyway, what helped me keep that stink off was my confidence in God:

I know that no matter what happens — whether I close the sale or not — God is going to take care of all my needs.

That promise of protection from Him gives me confidence in those situations.

We can have a similar confidence in all of life.

Knowing that as children of our Heavenly Father, our needs will be met. Because God’s good hand is upon us.

Alternatively, how dreadful it is to be under the wrath of our powerful God.

No need to dig deep on this one, just something I want to avoid.

To do that, I must seek Him, not forsake Him.

Simple enough.

— Ricky Ketchum

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the ESV®Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright© 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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