Desiring Goodness

To begin (with something completely different), another prayer by my younger self:

You have held me
like a broken vessel,
gently;
all my pieces
You have lovingly collected.

I have been shattered
so in Your Love You might
repair me, remake me;
You make marvelous
what was despised.

You line up
the history of my cracks;
You mark the weakest places
among the most glorious.

Your faith in me
is like a potter’s,
reforming me in love
that I may hold pure water.


In chapter three of Eldredge’s book, he talks about how we’ve lost the point of our faith by turning Christianity into a religion about morality – a how-to of righteous living comprised mostly of rules, if you will. While right action and duty are obviously important, he believes the movement of faith should be from duty to delight, and not the other way around. “The goal of morality,” he says, “is not morality – it is ecstasy. You are intended for pleasure!”

He doesn’t think this means anything as simplistic as ‘feeling good.’ Rather, he means we are made for eternal life, the pleasure of the Garden of Eden. This life we have in Christ isn’t just about foreverness, either: eternal life isn’t really about floating around in the sky with God through all of timeless eternity (thank goodness!). Instead, “eternal life is not primarily about duration but quality of life, ‘life to the limit.’ It cannot be stolen from us, and so it does go on. But the focus is on the life itself.”

The problem is that we’ve killed the desires of our hearts with wanting to follow exact rules in the hope that, somehow, those rules will themselves satisfy us. The story of the Fall from paradise embodies this stupid choice. We didn’t have a normal desire for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: the desire was put in our minds by the serpent. It isn’t really ours, but we chose it and allowed it to guide our decisions. This obsession with right and wrong, isn’t that a kind of death? It can take us out of God’s presence.

Jesus came to forgive sins, yes, but it was so that we might have life! Desire for God and following our hearts means first stepping out of the assumptions that would have us believe Christianity is about morality in the first place. It’s about living in God’s presence in joyful trust.

I’m not entirely sure where this leaves me. I mean, I’m pretty political at times (gay-rights anyone?). I don’t think that a religion of life would have me ignore what’s right. But I do think, maybe, it would have me do what’s right not because it is the-right-thing but because, in so being, it is the path of life.

And anyway, if I had to give up self-righteousness entirely, whatever would I put in this blog of mine?

(p.s. Please, please do write comments on the blog. It’s much appreciated because it makes me feel like possibly someone other than me is reading it.)