Being goooooddddd

"For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves." 1 Peter 2: 15-16

Wow. The best way to shut up folks who are talking smack is to do good.

Seems like a wonderful verse for a week of Starbucks red cups and such, doesn't it.

Simply do good, and that will shut them up.

There's a notion in Scripture about doing good that seemly overtakes all bad stuff we come across.

When God was doing his creating, he saw that it was good.

When the Israelites were about to take the promise land, we read that they were to "do what is right and good in the Lord's sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors."

It's always been good verse bad, good versus evil, good versus, well, fools.

I've read recently there is good chocolate and there is bad chocolate. There is good fat and bad fat. There is good debt and there is bad debt, good cholesterol and bad cholesterol and even good carbs and bad carbs.

Everything is split into good and bad. It is enough to make your head go swimming, and that's bad.

Steve Taylor, a psychologist, says it's not that simple. 

"It's a dangerous over-simplification to believe that some people are innately ‘good’ while others are innately ‘evil’ or ‘bad.’ This misleading concept underpins the justice system of many countries - ‘bad’ people commit crimes, and since they are intrinsically ‘bad’, they should be locked away so that they can’t harm us with their ‘evil’ behaviour. This concept has also fuelled many wars and conflicts in history, and even in the present day. It makes groups believe that they are fighting a just cause against an ‘evil’ enemy and that once the ‘evil’ people have been killed, peace and goodness will reign supreme."

Bad versus good. Good versus bad. It's not that easy to be, well, either.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 7, "So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.What a wretched man I am! "

I read that for the first time, really read that, when I was 42. It changed my life. A man in the Bible struggled with good and with evil. I knew then my story would be found right there. From that moment forward, I've tried to be good, but I've known I couldn't be as good as I wanted no matter how hard I tried. I needed a Savior, who would wash away the grime collected in a bad world that God didn't mean to ever happen.

In the end, all I know is that E.T. tells Elliot to "be goooooddddddd." 

That's enough for me.