goodness
Goodness. Being good. It just keep coming up, bubbling to the surface, from all sides. One moment, a proud affirmation that we are a good person. The very next, the weight of condemnation that we will never been good enough.Alternatively giving a surface comfort, then an impossible burden.The should be, should have.My Papa recently passed from this life into his eternal home. Arriving at the funeral after a month of activity and travel with many miles and little sleep, we were exhausted. But the family that gathered across generations was tender and sweet.
A good old south, Mississippi delta family, Papa went to church and knew the Lord. But when the sweet old country pastor talked of Papa being a "good Christian man" at the funeral, my heart burned. Because as my brother shared at the funeral, Papa's hope was not in being "good." His hope, he would declare in song with tears streaming down his cheeks, was only and solely on the blood of Jesus Christ to wash away his sin. Only Jesus was good. And Papa knew this. He knew his frame and that he was merely dust. He knew all the good he could perform on his own would be nasty and dirty compared to the brilliance of the glory of Jesus.
I know and am convinced, in this life, and now in glory, in the presence of the Glorious One, Papa would not say that he was a "good Christian man." He would throw himself completely on the mercy and grace of Christ to be his righteousness. To be anything and everything good in his being.Even with my littlest friend, a sweet 16-month-old girl, I find my tongue catching in my throat when I go to praise her. The words "good girl" catch in my throat. Do I want to teach her sweet little heart that she can be considered good because of her performance? So instead, after my stuttering, I turn and encourage her heart, her gentleness, her tenacity, and celebrate with her the joy of seeing what it is that she has done.
Recently I stepped in as a substitute teacher for a bible class for home educated students. Working their way through an Old Testament book of the Bible, they just happened to be in a difficult portion of Scripture. Full of just yuck and the brokenness of this world, I begged them to see the bigger picture. The one story of Scripture which overarches all else. That created for relationship with the Lord, we turn away (all of us). That none of us are innately good or can make ourselves good. That we all have earned the weight of brokenness and loss and the pain of separation. And apart from God, we are desperate people who do desperate things. Ugly things. Yet God. Yet God, rich in mercy, makes a way for us to know Him. To know Him fully. To live.A beautiful truth remains, that God did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive. Among others, I have heard Louie Gigglio powerfully teach this truth. And really, let this sink in. Let it free your heart. Catch the words in your throat and let your language reflect this truth. Rest in the finished work of Jesus to be everything right and good and true. And dwell on these things. Meditate on this truth. Because our thinking, will then change our feelings and our actions. Let us live! In Him we live and move and breathe and have our being. He is our only good. He is the Good.