Exploring Goodness and Freedom

We are in the middle of moving, so I will be fetching from the archives for the next two or three weeks. Enjoy!

Is there such a thing as good?
Fall Colors
Light through Crocus
Not the sort of good that is only good because it results in some desired, practical outcome, but the sort of good that is good in itself.  Inherently good, intrinsically good.
Wildflowers
Fall leaf
It would be arrogant to think that such a question could be fully addressed in this small place, but perhaps this space is sufficiently large at least to begin the wonderings.
This is a question containing quite a breadth of meaning, so it is worthwhile to ask it again: is there anything that is good in itself, apart from any practical value it might have?
What would it look like if the answer was no? What would our world look like if we believed that there was nothing that was good apart from its practical value? (I hasten to insert, however, that belief of some truth is not quite the same as truth itself.)
If there is no such thing as good, then that which is good becomes the same as whatever thing that I want.
Fighting
When all that says “It is good” has been debunked, what says “I want” remains. ~ C.S. Lewis in Abolition of Man
If good is the same as I want, then we become nothing but bundles of desires chasing after what will satisfy.

American Flag

Freedom.
We in the United States love the idea of freedom, yet even that idea has changed over the years.
Freedom, for most of the time that the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) have existed, meant the freedom to choose what is good; it involved responsibility and even the idea of self-denial.
If you asked most Westerners today, even those belonging to Christ, freedom means being able to do what pleases me.  It means doing whatever I want.
Trying to steal the scooter
Sword fighting
Trying to steal the trike
Those belonging to Christ might add “as long as I do not hurt others”.
Yet even that caveat seems to apply only to short-term harm and not to anything long-term such as caring for our earth and being committed to justice.
Look at our world and see the belief that there is nothing that is purely good, that freedom means the ability to follow my own desires.
Look at Christ, however, and see that if good does exist than freedom is the freedom to choose that good rather than being controlled by what is not good.  Freedom means responsibility and self-denial.  If there are things that are purely good, than those things should always be chosen for themselves and not for any practical value they might confer.
Sunset over pond
Sunset
Autumn tree
Lily
Many of those who pursue freedom are not truly free at all.  They are controlled by their own passions and desires, forced to spend their lives chasing after what will satisfy, yet never finding it.
Those who freely choose to be controlled by Christ, however, are choosing to control their desires and to harness their passions in pursuit of that which is good.  They will be satisfied.
Once again, Christ turns the wisdom of this world upside down and gives the good gift of true freedom to those who voluntarily offer their own freedom to Him.
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Wholly Purified

Who can know the motivations and secret desires of another soul?
Who can know the motivations and secret desires of your own soul?
Pure
Pure Water
We often speak about motivations being more important than actions, that the right action done for the wrong reason is still wrong.  Yet who can have pure motives…ever?
Never Pure
Even when my motive for doing something is right, it is not pure.  There is always something else, some bit of pride or dash of selfishness, mixed in along with the right.
 Mixed
Motives
Take this dream of mine to write, to be published.  I want to give people hope, to help people know this God of ours who is always good and who always loves.  And it would be amazing to get to tell people that I am published, that I have a book written, a book that actual people actually paid to read!  And that second part is straight out of my own desire to be known and loved by others above God.  How in the world, how in this earthly world, can I ever get it right if much of the time I don’t even fully know my own motives, much less be able to control them?
Permeated
It would be enough to sink us into despair, this inability even to know our own sin, this inability to know and purify the deep places of ourselves.
Unclean
Depths
King David speaks in Psalm 139 of God being the God of the heavens as well as of Sheol, the God of the heights of the morning as well as of the depths of the sea.  David says that our own innermost being is made up of parts that are even further away than those…and yet God knows them most intimately.  He pleads with God to search him and know him.  To know those parts of himself that even David cannot see, and to purify him.
David trusts fully in God’s Spirit.  He trusts that God is able to purify us not only on the levels of which we are conscious, but on our deepest levels of which we are not even aware as well.
Stained
In I Thessalonians, Paul proclaims the ability of God to sanctify us completely, to keep our whole spirit, soul, and body blameless.  Jude praises God for being able to keep us from stumbling, for being able to present us blameless in His presence.
If this only means that we will be presented blameless for the sin we are aware of, we are to be most pitied.  Praise God that He is able to purify us from the depths to the heights of our whole selves!
The same Spirit that fed the life of Jesus Christ will feed the life of our spirit.  It is only when we are protected by God with the miraculous sacredness of the Holy Spirit that our spirit, soul, and body can be preserved in pure uprightness until the coming of Jesus – no longer condemned in God’s sight.  ~ Oswald Chambers
Pure
Praise be to God for His mercy and grace.  Thanks be to Him for not only rescuing us but for molding us into the shape of His Son as well.
Clean

Goodness and Freedom

Is there such a thing as good?
Fall Colors
Light through Crocus
Not the sort of good that is only good because it results in some desired, practical outcome, but the sort of good that is good in itself.  Inherently good, intrinsically good.
Wildflowers
Fall leaf
It would be arrogant to think that such a question could be fully addressed in this small place, but perhaps this space is sufficiently large at least to begin the wonderings.
This is a question containing quite a breadth of meaning, so it is worthwhile to ask it again: is there anything that is good in itself, apart from any practical value it might have?
What would it look like if the answer was no? What would our world look like if we believed that there was nothing that was good apart from its practical value? (I hasten to insert, however, that belief of some truth is not quite the same as truth itself.)
If there is no such thing as good, then that which is good becomes the same as whatever thing that I want.
Fighting
When all that says “It is good” has been debunked, what says “I want” remains. ~ C.S. Lewis in Abolition of Man
If good is the same as I want, then we become nothing but bundles of desires chasing after what will satisfy.

American Flag

Freedom.
We in the United States love the idea of freedom, yet even that idea has changed over the years.
Freedom, for most of the time that the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) have existed, meant the freedom to choose what is good; it involved responsibility and even the idea of self-denial.
If you asked most Westerners today, even those belonging to Christ, freedom means being able to do what pleases me.  It means doing whatever I want.
Trying to steal the scooter
Sword fighting
Trying to steal the trike
Those belonging to Christ might add “as long as I do not hurt others”.
Yet even that caveat seems to apply only to short-term harm and not to anything long-term such as caring for our earth and being committed to justice.
Look at our world and see the belief that there is nothing that is purely good, that freedom means the ability to follow my own desires.
Look at Christ, however, and see that if good does exist than freedom is the freedom to choose that good rather than being controlled by what is not good.  Freedom means responsibility and self-denial.  If there are things that are purely good, than those things should always be chosen for themselves and not for any practical value they might confer.
Sunset over pond
Sunset
Autumn tree
Lily
Many of those who pursue freedom are not truly free at all.  They are controlled by their own passions and desires, forced to spend their lives chasing after what will satisfy, yet never finding it.
Those who freely choose to be controlled by Christ, however, are choosing to control their desires and to harness their passions in pursuit of that which is good.  They will be satisfied.
Once again, Christ turns the wisdom of this world upside down and gives the good gift of true freedom to those who voluntarily offer their own freedom to Him.
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Catch!

“Catch, Mommy!”



whizz! The little, Nerf football comes whirling a bit too close to my head, but I somehow manage to snag it.

“Good throw, Baby!”



My eldest loves to play catch with me. When I throw something that she is not able to catch, however, she usually informs me, “Mommy, you didn’t throw that very well”.



I was feeling a little too irritated by this yesterday when God gently reminded me that this is what I do to Him.

When something happens during my day that doesn’t suit me, I say “God, You didn’t do that very well.”



When I look at myself in the mirror and notice the bags under my eyes, the blemish on my face, or the stretch marks on my stomach, I say “God, You didn’t make this very well.”



How ridiculously arrogant I am!

Why can I not see that God does everything perfectly? Why can I not trust that all that He makes is beautiful?

Perhaps for the same reason that my eldest can’t tell that I am throwing the ball perfectly…well, decently at least.



I am too focused on myself to be able to see God for Who He is.

When I am completely honest with myself, I am selfish and arrogant. I truly wish that God would conform to my standards of beauty and goodness. I desire for my body, my family, my life to all look a certain way.

When I do this, however, I settle for too little, my desires, as C.S. Lewis puts it in The Weight of Glory, are too weak:

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

God, please teach me to look at You instead of at myself. Please help me to keep my eyes focused You instead of at the things and people around me. Help me to not be satisfied with my own weak desires for mud pies but to crave more of You instead.

Perhaps then I can better learn how to catch what God gently tosses my way.