The holiday music is well underway. My car radio continues to fill my ears with Nat King Cole, Burl Ives and Jimmy Durante. Those guys will never go away. One of the well-known songs has a really great line. “Be good for goodness sake.” It is a bit ironic that it contradicts the song. The song wants us to be good because Santa is checking his list. Twice! So we better be good so we get our toys. But I want to come back to being good for goodness sake.
How many of us are good or not bad because we think an angel in heaven is making a list? I’m not sure that is a very mature motive. If that is why we are good I don’t think we are really very good. Goodness should be done for goodness sake. The reward is in the act because it is the right thing to do. Things are good because they produce good fruit. They are not good because of some arbitrary check-sheet. Wise people will be good because they have figured out that is the smart way to live. Doing good produces an abundant life like apples appear on an apple tree.
If there were no heaven or no hell, wisdom dictates to us what is the good thing to do. The life that God prescribes for us is the fruit of His wisdom. Telling us to keep the commandments is God sharing His wisdom. Telling us not to do certain things is His way of trying to get us to stop “playing in the middle of the interstate highway.” If you do it you will get run over! Unfortunately it is true that sometimes doing good will get you run over. It got Jesus on a cross. But that was not because He wasn’t wise. It was because the people around Him weren’t.
Written by Roger Bothwell on December 10, 2009
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena,CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org