Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life… (Ps. 23:6)

If you could eavesdrop on your own funeral service, what would people say characterizes the ‘trail’ of your life? What path will your life carve for those who follow? Do I leave behind benediction and blessing for those whose lives I touch, or curse and carnage?

The Psalmist spoke with confidence that goodness and lovingkindness would follow him throughout his life. What was the source of such confidence?

I would say it was grace received and overflowing. Look at what the Psalmist just revealed prior to this bold statement.

You [God] prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You [God] anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

God’s gracious and lavish grace has filled the heart of David with overflowing so that his life was a conduit of that grace to others. True, David is acknowledging the goodness of God in his own experience, but there’s more. Goodness and lovingkindness “follow” him. In other words, there is a trail of this goodness and lovingkindness that flow from this reservoir of God’s grace to those who follow behind. It is out of the overflow that this trail of blessing flows to those who come behind.

James Boswell was the famous biographer of Samuel Johnson, an 18^th century writer, poet and compiler of A Dictionary of the English Language. Boswell’s biography of Johnson became one of the most famous works of the day.

As a boy, Boswell tells of a time when his father took him fishing. It was a day he reflected on with great fondness well into adulthood. One day that changed when, after his father’s death, James read his father’s diary. In it his father revealed his own view of that fishing day with his son: “Gone fishing today with my son; a day wasted.”

You can imagine the trail of negative emotions that must have followed James Boswell’s father for his son because of those few careless words. And if he dared to write them in his diary, one has to wonder what other messages he left in his wake.

Our grandchildren will be blessed or disheartened by the trail we leave. If our hearts overflow with the grace of God and his love for us, there will be a trail of goodness and lovingkindness to follow us all the days of our lives as well. And our children and grandchildren will be blessed.

GRANDPAUSE: Even if you did not follow in the trail of blessing and lovingkindness in your childhood, your heavenly Father delights in you and has demonstrated that delight through His Son, Jesus. His arms are always open, so ours can be open too.