BEING A GOOD PERSON (I)
How ‘human progression’ steals, kills, and destroys the produce of healthy, Holy fruit
Being a GOOD PERSON – Part 1 – The desire to be good
I’ve always wanted to be a good person.
In my childhood, my fascination with this desire was kindled by fictional and non-fictional characters; people willing to give their lives and if necessary, die for the sake of others.
Fictional heroes like the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Batman, and the X-Men stood as shining examples of moral righteousness, protecting the innocent, upholding justice, and if required, ‘being’ the ultimate sacrifice for the salvation of others.
During my childhood, this desire to be good was also nurtured by wholesome Saturday morning TV sitcoms like Saved by the Bell, Hang Time, and Pugwall’s Summer.
These TV shows deliberately—and sometimes overtly—provided moral lessons that delicately nestled in my subconscious.
Personally, one recurring lesson I can think of that shone amid the fibres comprising a ‘good person’ was monogamy and fidelity in relationships.
Thankfully, maturity in a physical and spiritual sense took hold, teaching me some realities about the pursuit of goodness.
In my most recent educational direction, I learned that technically speaking, there is no such thing as a ‘good person.’ (Luke 18:19, Romans 3:10 – 12, Psalm 14:1 – 3, Psalm 53:1 – 3).
Using the Christian theological definition of ‘good,’ for someone to qualify, they’d need to maintain consistent goodness in their thoughts and actions daily to all people–friend or enemy. Hence, it’s impossible.
There’s also plenty of Biblical narratives and didactic dialogues, revealing that the human flesh is riddled with an inherent evil that drives us to live selfish, disobedient, rebellious, and arrogant lives.
Essentially, our default setting is to preserve ‘self,’ disobey or find loop-holes in authority, create our own ever-changing rules, pursue power, take control, and enjoy self-exaltation and praise from others.
Despite this being an arguably morbid, pessimistic, and even misanthropic perspective of the human condition, the state of our world supports the fact that we are fundamentally broken creatures.
It also answers the question why unnecessary evils exist like war, famine, poverty, pestilence, and suffering (though I’m aware that there are people who would passionately debate the necessity of these unpleasant conditions, using evolution as their focal argument).
Another aspect I’ve observed about being a ‘good person’ (though I’m sure this could be easily disproved), is that anyone who comes close to the embodiment of good is seemingly extracted from this world prematurely, made to look mad, or exiled in some other awful fashion where they lose all credibility.
In this use of the word ‘good,’ I’m referring to those who show a selfless, humble nature, and also make a conspicuous dent against the world’s Neoliberal agenda of independence, individualism, self-indulgence, and conceit.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr springs to mind as one of these selfless individuals; a man who paid the ultimate price in his cause for freedom and justice. He had his failings as a man, unable to uphold sexual purity and monogamy, but he gave as much of his soul as he could to a reformative message greater than himself.
The ultimate martyr of purity and innocence—Jesus—cannot be ignored in this train of thought even though HE was God’s incarnation on Earth.
Jesus–as part of the grand salvation plan for all mankind–stood up against the corrupt, religious authority of the day and it resulted in His death.
These types of selfless movements contributed to the world’s current disposition, however, the ultimate tax was taken as though the world couldn’t stomach their goodness, leaving us with the stark rationale that there is more evil in this world than good.
But I’ve digressed a bit…
I’ve learnt that being a ‘good person’ isn’t about a set of rules, morals, or laws, because our inherent nature will simply fail to meet the measure–whether in thought or action.
Being a good person is about surrender, allowing Jesus to be Lord over one’s life.
In this surrender to Jesus, the natural by-product of the fruit of the Holy Spirit emerges without force, effort, or compulsion.
This fruit–of which I will go into later–embodies the characteristics and actions of what we as western society would classify ‘a good person.’
Over the years, in taking this step of faith daily, the life-journey has illuminated several subtle deceptions of our world that I can see catalyse the opposite effect Jesus has on us.
While the obvious evils—war, poverty, famine, disease, elitism, economic disparity—that a philosopher, psychologist, existentialist, Buddhist, yogi, atheist, or thinker from any background can see are impacting people, I’ve been drawn to observe a much more subtle evil.
What makes this a subtle evil is that it convinces us of its convenience and worth, while costing us in areas we supposedly don’t need.
This evil, is human progression and specifically, technology.
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