The end of my goodness (Journey continued)

I said in yesterday's post that I knew that I needed to change, to turn over a new leaf, and that you don't realize how hard it is until you try it.  I wanted to be good, I wanted to make up for the wrong I had done. I was going to do this, and I was going to do that. There were letters I was going to write to the news paper,  that would be heard and cause others to change. There were good things I was going to do that would impact the world. There was starvation and abuse to be addressed, but how much can you give away to a starving world and it be enough to atone for your sins, and how do you become righteous (if only in your own eyes) without becoming self righteous and obnoxious?

Jesus said that if you lust after a woman in your heart you have already committed adultery with her in your heart, and that hating is committing murder in the very same place. Pornography and lustful thoughts for  others degrades  them in the eyes of luster. It turns them into objects of gratification, depersonalizes them and  leads to attitudes of disrespect, the very opposite of love.  The scriptures teach that “He who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin”.  For me after (perhaps) starting well, I  found out that before too long I was lacking energy and compassion. In fact I was beginning to become resentful about it all. I was learning that all my righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). 

I no longer wanted to be “super Phil”. I remember saying to the Lord “I just want to be ordinary”. I no longer wanted to change the world. It was just too hard and too fruitless, and besides the conviction of my sin was fading, and the desire for my former (self centred and selfish) life returning with a vengeance.

The Scriptures teach us that the Law is our schoolteacher to bring us to Christ.  It is right to give to the poor, it is good and right and proper to love our neighbours as ourselves, it is right to fight for justice for the oppressed, it is good to honour our fellow man.  I remember hearing one man tell me,  that he always gives to charity when asked. “Really” I answered him skeptically (he grinned and admitted "Well no, not really"). The first time I went to India, I determined to give something to every beggar I encountered, but I was not able. I ran out of compassion way before I ran out of coins.  I was overwhelmed. I remember running across a street to get away from some children begging, and later realizing that in so doing, I might easily have lead them to their death.   Some were hungry, others were just good at begging.  Which was which? I suspected that some were just good actors. But even they may have been hungry that day.

I was learning the truth of the scripture when it teaches that there is none righteous,  no not one, there are none who seek after God. I was beginning to know and to understand deep in my soul that “By the works of the law shall no man be Justified in His sight”. I needed to be saved because not only I am  not good, I am incapable of being good. I was coming to "the end of my goodness".