Originally posted on Facebook on Saturday, August 2, 2025.

How am I?

This is a question I ask myself often.

In my culture, that's expressed as, "You good?"

But walking with Jesus has reshaped how I think of wellness—or what "good" even means. It's very counter to how we think about it in the world.

In the world, we tend to think of being well as having the things we want. But being the creature rather than the Creator, and lacking ultimate context, we do not have a full understanding even of what we individually need and should want to be well.

There have been times that I had all the things that should make someone satisfied and happy, and I was absolutely miserable.

When I ponder my best moments—where I was truly "good"—I find these things to be the defining contributors to well-being. And the more of them I have, the more I am well. Here are the levels:

Contributor: Knowledge of God
(who is good and encapsulates everything good)

Level 1: Glad
I have hope.

Contributor: Presence of God
(fellowship with God, being with God, participating in His work)

Level 2: Fulfillment
I am more than satisfied—lack of nothing and abundance to share.

Contributor: Approval of God
(knowing He is pleased with me)

Level 3: Ecstasy
I don't want to leave. There's absolutely nowhere I'd rather be.

Then there's this other dimension, another level that is not like the others—that's simultaneously the foundation, and the summit, the lowest level, and the highest.

Contributor: The Love of God

Level Always: Thankfulness

The contributor which is the Love of God is always there, so I can always be thankful.

"in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
— 1 Thessalonians 5:18

It is the beginning, the end, and all in all, the level that makes all the other levels possible—expressed fully in the person of Jesus Christ.

There is no wonder the Apostle Paul prays,

"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
— Ephesians 3:14-19

This is good. This is well-being.

And you know where I most often find it?

It's outside of my comfort zone, away from the things I tend to run to like isolation and indulgence.
It's in the fellowship of Christ's beloved,
in serving rather than being served.
in giving rather than receiving.

It's completely counterintuitive.

#EvaluatingWellbeing #HowAmI #good #perfectourlove