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IT'S
NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
Copyright
© 2001 by Debbie Porter
"There was a little
girl, Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her
forehead.
When she was good, She was
very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was
horrid.."
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882) ~
* * *
This may come as quite a
surprise and you may even find it hard to believe, but I have to admit it. As
a school girl I was most definitely a goody-goody.
Now I know that this may have
you reeling in shock, but yes, it's completely true. I was a real live Miss
Goody-two-shoes. There was none of that living on the wild side for me. Both
at school and at home my good behaviour far outweighed the bad.
In the eyes of my teachers,
classmates and family, I was a "good girl". I tried to do the right
thing and be as inoffensive as possible to everyone at all times. That is, at
least outwardly. Scratch away the veneer and underneath I wasn't always quite
such a model child. Only God and I knew what was going on in the hidden places
of my heart. In reality, I wasn't really that "good" at all.
But then again, what does it
mean to be "good"? Is it just fitting in with the normal
expectations and behaviours of society? Is it abiding by the rules and
standards of "decent" western civilization? Is it doing the right
thing by people more often than not? Or is it something more?
Even as I pondered on what
goodness really means, I found that the word itself has become almost
wishy-washy through overuse. Just today alone I found myself using it more
often than I realized.
My goodness!
Goodness gracious!
Goodness me!
Good on you!
Good girl!
Good boy!
Good dog!
Goodbye!
All that in just a few short
hours. Goodness!
That's not even including
such things as good ol' Charlie Brown's favorite saying, "Good
Grief!" Or the famous Australian greeting, "G'day", which of
course means good day. Life Down Under is far too good to waste time saying
any superfluous letters.
I began to wish that this was
one fruit of the Spirit I could skip. Not only does the word seem to be an
adjective for any form of acceptable behaviour, it's also pretty useful for
throwing around as a general exclamation. I felt a little better when I found
this quote:
"Goodness is easier to
recognize than to define."
~ - WH Auden, in I Believe
(1939) ~
Suddenly I didn't feel quite
so alone in coming to terms with what this seemingly multi-purpose,
handy-dandy word really means. But even in the recognition of this virtue in
someone's life, the question has to be asked, by whose standard are we
measuring? What may be quite good in the eyes of my neighbor may be far from
good in my opinion.
So it seems I'm back where I
started with this fruit of the Spirit that we're exhorted to cultivate in our
lives, and still not really knowing what's good enough.
The first breakthrough comes
when we "listen" in on a conversation Jesus had with a wealthy young
man:
"A certain ruler asked
him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is
good--except God alone."
(Luke 18:18-19 NIV)
Ah ha! Now we're getting
somewhere! But once again, there's a bit of a problem. If only God is good,
then how can we be expected to bear a fruit of goodness in our lives? How can
we attain to this absolute moral purity and quality that is God, if He alone
is good?
Well, at least in Christ's
words we now have the standard to measure "goodness" by, and it's a
very high standard. Not one of us could ever come to a point where we were as
good as God, because only He is essentially good. The truth of the saying,
"God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good!" is
suddenly crystal clear.
It's about here that we could
throw our hands up in the air and concede defeat! If we thought that growing
the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience and kindness demanded a lot, this call
to bear the fruit of goodness, on face value, seems to be impossible.
For me this comes as such a
surprise, because as we read through the list of Spiritual fruit in Galatians
5:22-23, goodness is the one that on first glance seems the simplest to
achieve. How easy it is to skim over familiar passages in the Bible!
But before we give up, we
should remember that God never demands of us anything that's beyond our
ability to do. Humanly it may be impossible, but with God all things are
possible. As believers we have God Himself dwelling within us by His Holy
Spirit, and He'll help us grow this fruit in our lives. After all, the One who
is goodness is within us.
The Apostle Paul also shows
us the way in Ephesians 5:1 when he says:
"Be imitators of God,
therefore, as dearly loved children."
Although he was referring to
the quality of love in this particular verse, the fact is that this is the
best way for us to blossom with God's goodness. Quite simply, we need to copy
Him in everything we do. The human representation of God was our Savior, Jesus
Christ, and if we want to know what it is to produce Godly goodness, we only
need to look at His life and follow His example.
Mmmm! Taste and see that the
LORD IS GOOD (Psalm 34:8) and His children should "taste" good too!
"Waste no more time
arguing what a good man should be. Be one."
~ Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations (2nd C) ~
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