Good and Right

I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil

Romans 16v19

 

I’m a good girl. I do my dishes, say my “p’s and q’s”, wash my laundry on a Saturday, go to Church on a Sunday and I write to my Grandma. If I’m feeling extra good, I’ll phone my parents, clean the bathroom extra well, bake, scrub, say my prayers and maybe read something spiritually fulfilling. I know I’m a good girl, not just because my Daddy told me so, but because I want to do what is right.

But what is the difference between ‘good’ and ‘right’? Is there a difference at all? 

For a long while, one of my biggest worries was whether or not I was doing God’s ‘will’. “Am I in the right job?”, “Should I go to art school?”, “What if I want to leave Canada?”, “Should I….?”, “Can I…?”, were often the thoughts that filled my mind. For two weeks I spent evenings in tears asking God if the job I had been offered was right. Needless to say, this ‘job’ was one I had wanted for a while and it was one I lost sleep over. God, in His way, had even reassured me that this was the best way for my life, yet I had spent hours in tears seeking if this was ‘right’. And at times, despite being in a fantastic situation, I still wonder if I am in the correct place and doing the proper thing.

Lately, however, I have become increasingly convinced of a few things. The first is that I am human and ultimately broken –shuffling on this “mortal coil” and trying to make the best sense of what I’m doing . God’s thoughts are higher and wider and vaster and far purer than mine, and I can never attempt to persuade myself otherwise. The second is that God is the great ‘translator’. He, a thousand times over, has stooped as low as we to reveal Himself. Through ancient literature, through song and rhyme and speak, and ultimately through Christ Himself, we have seen Him come down to  pursue us, His long desired creation. He takes my attempts and like clay, tenderly moulds them to His purposes. 

I spend a lot of time thinking about what to teach and share with the teens that I work with. I desperately scroll popular Youth Ministry websites drooling over the newest and latest this or that and rummage through my mind to come up with something that might catch their attention.  I worry about if what I’m teaching is ‘right’, and if it isn’t, if I’m outside of God’s will.

But God is bigger than that and these thoughts make my work about me and not Him. My worries turn my chin to my chest to look at myself and my problems and my worries and my failures, instead of looking up to heaven and asking God to ‘translate’ what I say into something decent and fruitful. Who am I to know the mystery of how He works in other people’s lives. This is God we deal with, “he is not a tame lion“.

My friend Robin always says “we just have to be faithful”. He’s right. We should be “wise about what is good”, I should be wise about what is good, and if I live with the prayer “guide me Lord” on my breath, then by faith should I should trust that what works out, works out. 

Despite my fumbling and anxieties , the teens I work with are graciously and beautifully growing. They’re forming into young adults, the girls are blossoming and the boys are doing the same, only in a more masculine manner. God is moving in them, and I am humbled because He chose me to work through. He truly is working things together for the good.

I’m not really sure about how to finish this post, I might come back later and edit it, but then again, I might just leave it. My thought isn’t really finished, it’s more ongoing. As I stumble my way through my walk with God, maybe I’ll have more to say, maybe some divine revelation about goodness over being ‘right’, but maybe I won’t, maybe I’ll just keep on thinking.