too good to be true

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.

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:

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."

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.

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!