Goodness of God: The Story Behind the Song
How Jenn Johnson sang a song into her phone on a country road after adopting her son — and how those unrehearsed words of gratitude became one of the most beloved worship anthems of the 21st century, winning Song of the Year at the 2023 GMA Dove Awards and topping the Billboard Gospel Chart through CeCe Winans’ iconic cover
Introduction: A Song Born on a Country Road
Some of the greatest worship songs in Christian history were born not in recording studios or songwriting retreats, but in the unguarded, unscripted moments of ordinary life — when someone is simply driving down a road and a truth so large and so personal that it cannot be contained suddenly pours out of them and into the air. Charles Wesley reportedly wrote hymns on horseback. Rich Mullins drove with the windows down. And in 2018, Jenn Johnson was driving on a long country road in northern California, freshly home from adopting her son, when she grabbed her phone and started singing.
What she sang into that phone — a raw, grateful, overflowing declaration of God’s faithfulness in her life — became the foundation of “Goodness of God.” It was refined, co-written with an extraordinary team of songwriters, professionally recorded at Bethel Church in Redding, California, and released in January 2019 on Bethel Music’s album Victory. Within months it had spread to churches around the world. Within two years it had been covered by one of the greatest voices in Gospel music history. And in October 2023 — four years after its release — it stood on the stage of the GMA Dove Awards in Nashville as Song of the Year. The song that began on a country road with a phone and a grateful heart had become the most celebrated worship song of its era.
Jenn Johnson: The Woman Behind the Voice
Jennifer “Jenn” Johnson was born on April 15, 1982, and grew up in the orbit of Bethel Church in Redding, California — one of the most influential evangelical churches in contemporary American Christianity. As a teenager, she found herself drawn deeply into worship, and it was at Bethel that she met Brian Johnson, son of the church’s senior pastor Bill Johnson. They married in 2000, and in doing so she became not just a member of Bethel’s community but a central architect of its worship culture.
Together, Brian and Jenn Johnson have been leading worship at Bethel Church for over 25 years. In 2001, they released their debut live worship album Undone as Brian & Jenn Johnson. But it was as part of the collective known as Bethel Music — which they co-founded — that their impact became global. Bethel Music is not merely a worship band. It is a worship community: a collective of resident songwriters, worship leaders, and musicians at Bethel Church who record live worship services and release them to the world. The collective has produced some of the most widely sung worship music of the past two decades, including “This Is Amazing Grace” (Phil Wickham), “No Longer Slaves,” “Raise a Hallelujah,” and dozens of others.
Jenn became President of Bethel Music in 2021 — a role she had effectively been fulfilling for years before the title was formalized. She is also the founder of Lovely by Jenn Johnson, a lifestyle brand focused on wholeness and beauty for women, and the author of the book All Things Lovely (2021). Premier Christianity magazine identified “Goodness of God” as the third-most sung worship song in the UK according to CCLI data — a staggering testament to a woman who began her worship ministry as a teenager in a California church and never stopped.
Her five children — Haley, Téa, Braden, Ryder Moses, and Malachi Judah — are woven through the fabric of her music. Two of them, Ryder Moses and Malachi Judah, were adopted. And it is from the journey of adoption — specifically the adoption of Ryder Moses — that “Goodness of God” was born.
Ryder Moses: The Adoption That Changed Everything
Ryder Moses Johnson. The name itself is a theological statement. “Ryder” suggests a journey — someone on the move. “Moses” means “drawn out of the water” — but in Jenn and Brian’s intentional selection, they understood it as pointing to a deeper meaning: deliverer, one rescued in order to rescue others. Ryder Moses: adopted deliverer. A child drawn out of one situation and placed into a family, just as Moses was drawn from the Nile and placed into Pharaoh’s household — and then used to deliver a nation.
The adoption process is rarely simple or painless. For the Johnsons, it involved a long season of waiting, uncertainty, paperwork, prayer, and the particular kind of emotional exhaustion that comes from loving a child before you can hold them. And it was during this season — specifically in the period after they had finally brought Ryder home — that Jenn found herself driving on a country road in northern California, overcome with gratitude.
In her own words, as shared in multiple interviews and summarized powerfully in her conversation with Worship Leader magazine: “I just was so overcome with the goodness of God in my life and that’s my song, you know, because God has just walked me through hell and high water and His voice and the power of His word have gotten me through everything and it’s my anchor.” She grabbed her phone — not a notebook, not a piano, not a recording setup — and sang what was in her heart into the phone’s voice memo app while driving. What came out was not a polished song. It was a testimony. A declaration. An overflowing of a heart that had seen God be faithful in the hardest places and could not stay silent about it.
Those raw recorded words became the seed of “Goodness of God.” Jenn later brought the melody and the heart of the song to a co-writing session that included her husband Brian Johnson, as well as professional CCM songwriters Ed Cash, Ben Fielding (of Hillsong Worship), and Jason Ingram. Together, they shaped the rough material into the structured, singable, theologically rich song that the world would come to know.
The Songwriters: A Team of Five
“Goodness of God” carries five writing credits — an unusually collaborative origin for a worship song that feels so intimate and personal. Each songwriter brought something essential to the final result.
Jenn Johnson provided the heart — the lived experience, the melody fragment, the emotional core. The song is, first and foremost, her testimony. Without her voice and her story, there is no song.
Brian Johnson — her husband and longtime musical partner — helped develop the musical structure and theological depth. Brian is himself an accomplished songwriter and worship leader at Bethel, and his fingerprints are on many of Bethel Music’s most enduring songs.
Ed Cash is one of the most decorated producers and co-writers in contemporary Christian music. He has written or co-written some of the most widely sung songs of the past two decades, including “How He Loves,” “Your Grace Is Enough,” and material for Chris Tomlin, Christy Nockels, and countless others. Cash also produced “Goodness of God,” handling the sonic architecture of the recording that would be released on Victory.
Ben Fielding is an Australian songwriter and worship leader with Hillsong Worship, whose credits include “What a Beautiful Name,” “This I Believe (The Creed),” and “King of Kings.” His contribution to “Goodness of God” connects the song to the broader global worship movement that Hillsong and Bethel have jointly shaped over the past two decades.
Jason Ingram is a Nashville-based songwriter and producer with multiple GMA Dove Awards to his name, known for his work with Chris Tomlin, Matt Maher, and Crowder. His expertise in shaping lyrics for congregational singability — clarity, repetition, emotional arc — helped give “Goodness of God” the structure that makes it so easy for a congregation to learn and internalize.
Scripture Foundation: Psalm 23 and the Pursuing God
The theological heart of “Goodness of God” is anchored most directly in Psalm 23:6 — one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” — Psalm 23:6 (ESV)
The bridge of “Goodness of God” — “Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me” — is a direct and deliberate paraphrase of this verse, and the Hebrew behind the English word “follow” is the key to understanding why. The Hebrew word used in Psalm 23:6 is radaph, which means not merely to walk behind or accompany, but to pursue, to chase, to run after. It is the same word used for a pursuer or an enemy in hot pursuit. Machias Valley Baptist Church’s Pastor Zach explained it this way: “God often has to drive us, push and prod us, to go down the path we would rather not tread. Yet when we do, not only does He Himself follow us — ‘Goodness’ with a capital ‘G’ — but ‘goodness’ follows; that is, good results follow our obedience.”
The songwriters understood what most casual readers of Psalm 23 miss: David is not describing a gentle, passive God who happens to be nearby. He is describing a God who pursues His people with goodness and mercy the way a determined hunter pursues prey. The goodness of God is not waiting for you to deserve it. It is running after you — through the valley of the shadow of death, through the seasons you didn’t choose, through the roads you drove in tears with a phone recording your prayers.
The song also draws richly from several other scriptural streams. The opening lines echo Exodus 33:19, where God declares to Moses: “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.” Psalm 89:1 in the Amplified Bible reads: “I will sing of the goodness and lovingkindness of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness from generation to generation” — the theological DNA of the chorus. Psalm 34:8 — “Taste and see that the Lord is good” — and Psalm 27:13 — “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” — provide further roots. And the bridge’s language of surrender — “With my life laid down, I surrender now, I give You everything” — echoes Romans 12:1: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Lyrical Analysis: Every Line a Declaration
Verse 1 — Morning to Night
I love You, Lord, for Your mercy never fails me
All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands
From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
The opening words — “I love You, Lord” — are arresting in their simplicity. This is not the language of theology from a distance. It is the language of relationship. The decision to open a worship song with “I love You” is rare and bold; it assumes an intimacy with God that the song will then spend its remaining lines justifying. “Mercy never fails me” is a claim of lifelong faithfulness — not a good season or a favorable moment, but a consistent, unbroken track record. “From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head” covers the entire arc of a day — morning prayers to evening rest — and says: every moment of every day, He has been there. The verse ends with a decision: “I will sing.” Not “I feel like singing” or “I am moved to sing” — but “I will.” It is a choice of the will, not merely an emotion of the moment.
Chorus — The Summary of a Life
All my life You have been faithful
All my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
“All my life” is a sweeping, retrospective claim. It is the language of testimony, not aspiration. The singer is not hoping God will be faithful in the future. They are declaring that He already has been — from the first breath to the present moment. The phrase “so, so good” is theologically unpretentious and emotionally authentic. It doesn’t reach for a scholarly word. It says what you say when you mean it: so good. “With every breath that I am able” ties the act of worship to the very fact of biological life — as long as air fills these lungs, praise will fill this mouth. It is an echo of Psalm 150:6 and a rehearsal of eternity.
Verse 2 — Walking Through the Hard Places
I love Your voice, You have led me through the fire
In the darkest night, You are close like no other
I’ve known You as a Father, I’ve known You as a Friend
And I have lived in the goodness of God
The second verse is where the song goes deeper than celebration into testimony. “You have led me through the fire” — this is not a metaphor for mild difficulty. It is the language of the furnace, of Daniel 3, of the refiner’s fire in Malachi 3. Jenn Johnson has said in her own words that “God has just walked me through hell and high water.” This verse is the honest acknowledgment of that. And the declaration is not “You rescued me from the fire” but “You led me through it.” The fire was real. The darkness was real. And God was closer in it than He is in the easy seasons — “close like no other.” The verse then moves from the fires of life to the character of God: Father and Friend. Creator-authority and covenant-intimacy. Both at once. And the final line — “I have lived in the goodness of God” — is the conclusion of a life examined: wherever I have been, whatever I have walked through, I have lived there. In His goodness. Always.
Bridge — Surrender and Pursuit
Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me
Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me
With my life laid down, I surrender now
I give You everything
Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me
The bridge is the emotional and theological climax. “Running after me” — radaph — the pursuing God of Psalm 23. But here is what makes the bridge theologically rich rather than merely poetic: the response to being pursued is not to run faster or to stand still and receive passively — it is to lay down your life and surrender. “With my life laid down, I surrender now, I give You everything.” When you know that the One running after you is the God of goodness and not a threat, the only rational response is to stop running and fall down in worship. The bridge is the moment in the song where testimony becomes surrender, and gratitude becomes consecration.
Timeline: From Phone Recording to Dove Award
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1982 | Jenn Johnson born April 15 in Redding, California |
| 2000 | Jenn marries Brian Johnson; joins Bethel Church worship leadership |
| 2001 | Brian & Jenn Johnson release debut live worship album Undone |
| 2001 | Bethel Music collective formally established; Jenn is a founding member |
| 2017–2018 | Jenn and Brian Johnson begin the adoption process for Ryder Moses Johnson (“adopted deliverer”) |
| 2018 | Jenn sings the raw melody and lyrics of “Goodness of God” into her phone while driving on a country road after bringing Ryder Moses home; the voice memo becomes the foundation of the song |
| 2018–2019 | Co-writing sessions with Brian Johnson, Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, and Jason Ingram; the song is developed, structured, and produced by Ed Cash |
| January 4, 2019 | “Goodness of God” released as a promotional single ahead of the Victory album |
| January 25, 2019 | Bethel Music’s Victory album released; “Goodness of God” is track 3 |
| November 1, 2019 | Radio single version released digitally |
| November 8, 2019 | Song begins play on Christian radio stations; peaks at No. 15 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart |
| 2020 | Nominated for GMA Dove Award for Worship Recorded Song of the Year; Bethel Music releases alternate version on the album Peace |
| 2021 | CeCe Winans records her version of “Goodness of God” for her live album Believe For It; Jenn Johnson becomes President of Bethel Music |
| 2021–2022 | CeCe Winans’ version peaks at No. 6 on Hot Christian Songs and No. 2 on Hot Gospel Songs; surpasses 48 million streams and 320 million video views; becomes a #1 Billboard Gospel Radio hit; CeCe wins Grammy for Best Gospel Album (Believe For It) at the 2022 Grammy Awards |
| September 2022 | CeCe Winans releases official music video for her version of “Goodness of God”; over 100 million views on TikTok alone |
| October 20, 2023 | “Goodness of God” wins Song of the Year at the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards in Nashville — presented by MultiTracks.com — four years after its initial release |
| 2024–present | Song remains among the top-ranked worship songs globally on CCLI; listed as third-most sung worship song in the UK; continues to be sung in churches in dozens of languages on every continent |
CeCe Winans: The Cover That Changed Everything
When CeCe Winans — the most awarded female Gospel artist of all time, with 15 Grammy Awards and 27 Dove Awards — chose to record “Goodness of God” for her 2021 live album Believe For It, she did not merely add a cover version to a catalog. She gave the song a second life that introduced it to an entirely different audience and took it to heights it had not previously reached.
CeCe’s version peaked at No. 6 on the Hot Christian Songs chart and No. 2 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Radio Chart. It accumulated over 48 million streams and an astonishing 320 million video views combined across platforms. On TikTok alone, her version gathered over 100 million views — making it one of the most viral Gospel videos in the platform’s history. At the 2022 Grammy Awards, her album Believe For It won Best Gospel Album, and the song was central to that recognition.
What CeCe brought to “Goodness of God” was the weight of a 40-year career of standing on stages and declaring the goodness of God through every personal and national storm. When she sang “I’ve known You as a Father, I’ve known You as a Friend,” audiences who knew her story heard the testimony behind the testimony. The song crossed from contemporary worship into Gospel, from predominantly white evangelical spaces into predominantly Black Gospel spaces, and in doing so it became one of the truly ecumenical worship anthems of the modern era — sung by virtually every tradition, in virtually every style.
Notable Recordings and Performances
| Artist / Recording | Notes |
|---|---|
| Bethel Music & Jenn Johnson | Victory (2019); original live recording at Bethel Church, Redding, CA; the definitive original version |
| CeCe Winans | Believe For It (2021); peaked No. 6 Hot Christian Songs, No. 2 Hot Gospel Songs, No. 1 Billboard Gospel Radio; over 320M combined video views; Grammy Award-winning album |
| Bethel Music (instrumental) | Without Words: Genesis (2019); released November 15, 2019 |
| Bethel Music (alternate) | Peace (2020); released April 10, 2020 |
| Various worship teams | One of the most widely covered contemporary worship songs globally; arrangements in dozens of languages and styles across every denomination |
| South Fellowship, Machias Valley Baptist, and thousands of local churches | Adopted as a congregational standard in churches of every size and tradition; frequently paired with sermon series on Psalm 23, faithfulness, and God’s character |
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote “Goodness of God”?
“Goodness of God” was co-written by Jenn Johnson, Brian Johnson, Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, and Jason Ingram. It was originally performed and recorded by Bethel Music and Jenn Johnson, released on the album Victory on January 25, 2019. Ed Cash also served as producer.
What inspired Jenn Johnson to write “Goodness of God”?
Jenn Johnson was inspired by the adoption of her fourth child, Ryder Moses Johnson (whose name means “adopted deliverer”). While driving on a country road in northern California after bringing Ryder home, she was overwhelmed with gratitude for God’s faithfulness and began singing into her phone. Those recorded words became the foundation of the song.
What Bible verse is “Goodness of God” based on?
The song’s bridge — “Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me” — is a direct paraphrase of Psalm 23:6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The Hebrew word for “follow” (radaph) means “to run after, pursue.” The song also draws on Psalm 89:1, Psalm 34:8, Psalm 27:13, Exodus 33:19, and Romans 12:1.
Did “Goodness of God” win any major awards?
Yes. “Goodness of God” won Song of the Year at the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards on October 20, 2023 — four years after its initial release. CeCe Winans’ 2021 cover version also helped her album Believe For It win Best Gospel Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards. CeCe’s version reached No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Radio Chart.
Who is Jenn Johnson?
Jenn Johnson (born April 15, 1982) is Co-Founder and President of Bethel Music, Senior Worship Pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California, author of All Things Lovely (2021), founder of Lovely by Jenn Johnson, and mother of five children. She and her husband Brian Johnson have been leading worship at Bethel for over 25 years. “Goodness of God” is considered the defining song of her career and is currently listed as one of the top-three most sung worship songs in the United Kingdom by CCLI.
Legacy: What Makes a Song Last
It is worth pausing to ask: why does “Goodness of God” connect so deeply, so broadly, and so enduringly? Many worship songs are released every year. Most are forgotten within months. A few last a decade. Very few become the kind of song that a church in Nigeria and a church in Nebraska and a church in South Korea all sing on the same Sunday morning, with equal conviction and equal tears.
The answer is not primarily musical, though the music is excellent. The key of A-flat, the moderate rock tempo, the simple verse-chorus-bridge structure — these are well-crafted elements, but they don’t explain the song’s reach. The answer is theological and testimonial simultaneously. “Goodness of God” does something that the greatest worship songs always do: it puts into universally singable words a truth so personal that every individual worshipper feels it was written specifically about their own life.
When the congregation sings “I love You, Lord, for Your mercy never fails me,” they are not singing about Jenn Johnson’s adoption story. They are singing about their own story — their own fires, their own dark nights, their own moments of being held in hands they could not see. When they sing “Your goodness is running after me,” they are not thinking about Psalm 23:6 in the abstract. They are thinking about the moment they were sure they had gone too far, wandered too long, failed too completely — and discovered that Goodness had been running after them all along.
That is the gift Jenn Johnson gave the church when she grabbed her phone on that country road. Not a performance. Not a production. A testimony. And testimonies, when they are true, when they are rooted in Scripture, and when they are offered with the kind of transparency that costs something — those are the seeds that grow into songs that outlast the moment and outlive the singer. “Goodness of God” will be sung long after every chart position is forgotten, long after every streaming number is obsolete, long after the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards is a footnote in a history book. It will be sung because the God it describes is still pursuing people on country roads, in adoption waiting rooms, in darkest nights and hardest seasons — and He is still running after them with the same relentless, irresistible goodness He always has been.
“Goodness of God” written by Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, Jason Ingram, Brian Johnson, and Jenn Johnson. © 2018 Capitol CMG Paragon / SHOUT! Music Publishing / Fellow Ships Music / So Essential Tunes / Bethel Music Publishing. Originally performed by Bethel Music & Jenn Johnson. Released on Victory (Bethel Music, January 25, 2019). Song of the Year — 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards, October 20, 2023. CCLI Song Number: 7117726.
