A couple of months ago, I stumbled upon something on Instagram stories that has stuck with me ever since. A fellow blogger that I follow had been asked about her religious affiliation and she went on to explain her background (some of which I have in common with) and then went on to say she and her family no longer practice in any denomination. After that she gave a few examples of charitable, ‘good’ deeds and then said that she generally just ‘tries to be a good person. Because “isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?”
Before I go on, I just want to say that I’m not shaming this person. I still love to follow her and don’t hold anything against her personally. I know that a LOT of people share her sentiments and, if that’s you, I hope you’ll keep reading with an open mind.
But for the past two months – or however long ago it was – I’ve intermittently remembered her words and when I do, it spurs this lengthy conversation in my head about why they bothered me so much. In the end, I think it’s because she used the huge stage of Instagram, and her influence, to pass something off as truth that I really don’t think is true at all.
I know, I know, I probably sound a little petty right now (and even hypocritical since I’m sharing on my platform too), but stay with me. I’d like to share my truth as well.
Technically, I grew up in church. My mom would drag my brothers and me out of bed on Sunday mornings for Sunday school, followed by church service… and I dreaded it. Seriously, I hated going to church back then. For one simple reason: I didn’t get it. The metaphorical coin hadn’t dropped. To me, sitting in a pew listening to a bunch of stuff based on a book written a long time ago while I could be in bed sleeping was not my cup of tea. Back then I saw church as a place for rituals, rules and judgement rather than what it was really for: Grace and love and fellowship.
It wasn’t until my senior year of high school, after my family had stopped attending church regularly, that I started going on my own. In the interest of full disclosure, I was invited by a boy that I was seeing at the time to attend the church where his dad was the lead pastor. But once it clicked for me, my life was forever changed for the better.
So what changed?
I started to learn that God isn’t Big Brother in the sky judging everything I did. I started to learn instead that he was the most perfect Father I could imagine who gave up the most precious thing he could so that I could feel how much He loves and adores me. And you know what else? He paid a price – the ultimate price – that settled all our debts forever. Jesus dying on the cross covers everything because God knew I couldn’t ‘just be a good person’. Not 100% of the time. But He can. And He is.
See, I think I hate the sentiment that being a good person is enough, because it discredits the immense sacrifice God made for us. It’s kind of like someone bakes you the most phenomenal cake out of love, but you throw it away and decide, for no good reason, to do the work yourself and make your own instead. It also places the burden on us to be a ‘good person’. To constantly worry about whether you’re doing enough, being enough or performing at a high enough level.
The thing is, God’s already done the work for us because we aren’t good people. Not really. Not all the time. Not the kind of Good that God is. And guess what? That’s okay. We’re meant to be free of that guilt because, to Him, YOU ARE ENOUGH. Just the way you are.
And anyway, if God doesn’t exist, who even gives the definition of ‘good’? G and I talk about this all the time because we know it’s something nonbelievers struggle with. But, without God’s lead, who gets to decide what’s right and what’s wrong? Who do you trust with that power? Seems to me like that’s a pretty subjective line that can be drawn in different places by different people. Heck, I don’t even agree with my own family members about certain legal and political issues. And if you say there’s an innate sense of good and evil that we all have….. well, where did that come from?
To me, there had to be an example set somewhere. I won’t turn this into a post on apologetics. I just had to get this off my chest because it’s been on my heart ever since I saw that post. If you stayed to read this entire thing – thank you so much for hearing me out. If you have a response, question or even disagreement, I’d love for you to share in the comments below!
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