Advent Devotion

December 8, 2009

I'm Just Not That Good

Excerpt from 2 Peter 1: 2-15

"You must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love."

Reflection by Lillian Daniel

Just reading that list makes me tired and despondent. I can't fit all those good attributes into one day, let alone one sentence. I know every one those characteristics is something worth striving for, but seeing them all together like that makes me think this is not the list for me.

I'd be grateful for a day where I displayed some goodness, or had some self-control, or showed some godly love. But I seldom hit all those things together. And who does?

I don't think God expects us to get them all right at every time. In fact, as followers of Jesus, we know we are not capable of that kind of perfection, which is why we need him.

Yet, the point here is that our good practices really are connected to one another. When, for example, we work toward mutual affection, surely that will help us in the love department. Without self-control, our love can go awry. Pure knowledge can make the world worse as easily as it makes it better. Knowledge needs to work alongside goodness. They all need one another.

Most of us are strong in one department, and weaker in another. Look over that list very carefully. Is there something there that God is calling you to work on today?

Did you make brownies for your sick neighbor, and then eat a whole tray yourself? Did you ace the intelligence test but flunk compassion? Did you throw yourself overboard for love and forget to expect mutual affection? Perhaps you know where you might start.

Prayer

Jesus, you meet us right where we are. Today I ask you to take me to a better place. Give me one good thing to work on, in your holy name, and let that one good thing influence all the others. Amen.