Trying to be Good

I am not a very nice person. I'd like to be a nice person. I try really hard to be a nice person. I do okay for about 10 minutes. Then I say something mean or inconsiderate to someone that I love, and I realize once again that I am not a very nice person. When I come to this realization, I get really frustrated, and kind of guilty. And then I get determined to try harder the next time so I can succeed at being good. Which of course I can't do.

But why do I want to be good? I have been thinking about this lately, and I have come to the conclusion that most of the time, even though I wouldn't say it out loud, I am trying to be good because I want to earn God's forgiveness. I want to be good so that I will deserve God's blessing. Well that is clearly foolishness, and yet that is what is going on subconsciously in my head I think. I've been reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller lately, and his chapter on grace is really really good I think:

"I would hear about grace, read about grace, and even sing about grace, but accepting grace is an action I could not understand. It seemed wrong to me not to have to pay for my sin, not to feel guilty about it or kick myself around. More than that, grace did not seem like the thing I was looking for. It was too easy. I wanted to feel as though I earned my forgiveness, as though God and I were buddies doing favors for each other."

And yet where does that get me, this earning of my forgiveness? Well, every time I set out to do it, I wind up in that same place - kicking myself at my inability to live rightly. This all starts to feel very hopeless. Until we remember that the whole point of Jesus dying in the first place was that he knew we couldn't earn his forgiveness, and that we desperately needed his help. And that's what grace is. Should we go on sinning then, so that grace can increase all the more? "By no means!" to borrow the words of Paul. And yet until we get it through our heads that this being good isn't our ticket to heaven, we aren't really accepting the beautiful gift that has been offered us.

So what is going to change us?

"Our 'behavior' will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible. The laziest of men will swim the English channel to win his woman... By accepting God's love for us, we fall in love with him, and only then do we have the fuel we need to obey. In exchange for our humility and willingness to accept the charity of God, we are given a kingdom. And a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion."