What It Means To Be Righteous

Christians know what it means to be righteous. In Genesis, Abram was given a deposit of righteousness because he had faith that though he and his wife were unable to conceive, he believed God's promise. And so we see in the New Testament both James and Paul pointing to Abraham as a guidepost to mark the path of those who seek to be righteous.

But faith in God's promise has a lot of consequences. And those who profess their unity and indivisibility with Christ need to see these consequences and understand how deep their faith needs to run.

See, I learned something recently, and it really clarified a few things to me.

Everything we do has consequences, not just externally but internally. In our daily lives, with our resources and our talents and our time and energy, our actions reinforce or destruct our nature, depending on what we have done (or failed to do).

Now, I am really only talking about Christians and their actions and inactions, for reasons that should be obvious here. Christians can walk the path of the righteous and can also walk a dangerous road that falls away from the true way, and really not even know it.

Again, going back to the OT, we can look at Psalm 14. Here's the NASB translation:

The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.
The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
Do all the workers of wickedness not know, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord?
There they are in great dread, for God is with the righteous generation.
You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but the LORD is his refuge.
Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores His captive people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.

Psalm 14 is a dirge, a lamentation that those whom God had set apart had fallen from the righteous way. But the first sentence seems to be at odds with the other thoughts of the Psalm: who among those whom God had set apart actually dared think that "there is no God"? In this case, the "fool" wasn't an atheist, since the latter would be few and far between during this time. The "fool" was he who acted as if God was not relevant with respect to that area or part of life that the fool wanted to control himself.

And I see this in my own life.

We who have so much, who have so much talent, so much wealth, so many ideas, so much energy and time, we guard these treasures we have amassed as if these were ours to control. We give when we feel stable enough to give, we help when we feel secure enough to help, and we protect ourselves because we have equity in our treasures. And then, we pray to God, that God might help us to keep us safe, to keep us from financial ruin or instability. It is all very foolish for certain, because there is no righteousness in asking God to protect a part of our lives where we do not allow God's sovereignty to reign.

The righteous will put their faith in God, in all things, and to them, God will credit righteousness.

I need to see this and put it into practice.

-David

Time To Move On

The hardest thing to do is to know what to do.

How do you know what to do? How do you know when to do whatever it is that you know you should do? And then, how do you know how to do whatever it is that you should do, when you know when you should do it?

There are no do-over's in life.

I am reminded of a story I read somewhere.

A long time ago, there lived a young man in a farming village. This young man was approaching the age where he was expected to take over his father's farm and start a family of his own. His parents were getting old and they were excited about their only son taking responsibility for not only his life, but the lives of everyone in the family.

The son also knew that his time to take his place was approaching, but there was a huge question that hovered over his head and stayed with him day and night. If he was to take over his father's farm, and start a family of his own, would he not have to choose his wife? Wouldn't a wife be necessary to start a family?

And so the young man kept his eyes open and tried to keep an open heart towards every girl that he knew. Some girls were already taken, others were not his type. But there was a girl that he had been close with for some time, since they were little kids. Was this the girl that the young man should marry? What would the girl say, if the young man asked?

So the young man brought the girl that he had been close with for some time to the lake where they often went to go for a swim in the summer or to fish when the weather was cooler. He brought her to the rock where they often sat and talked idly about this or that, but this time, he wanted to talk to her about serious things. They laid out a picnic to enjoy the sunshine and the cool breezes, but both knew inside their hearts that this wasn't going to be an easy conversation.

And after they had their meal and drink, they sat quietly, not really looking at each other.

The young man spoke first. "We've been friends for as long as I can remember. And we've been coming to this lake for longer than that." The young man paused for a bit, as if to wait for an answer. The girl did not respond; she knew better than to respond yet. After all, the young man never got to point directly when there was a difficult matter to discuss, and this was going to be one of those difficult conversations. The young man continued, "I always feel most at ease here. Here, on this rock, I can see into the past and remember, and I can see into the future and dream."


The girl was still quiet. She knew that the young man had something important to say. The young man shifted his weight and turned towards the fading sunlight, trying to gather the last bit of warmth before the sun went to bed for the night. The young man closed his eyes and sighed, "You and I, we aren't right for each other, are we?"

The girl said nothing. What could she say? If they were right for each other, wouldn't each of them know? And if they were right for each other, then why would he say the opposite? Besides, if she felt strongly the other way, then wouldn't she be objecting or feeling a strong sense one way or another? What the girl felt was.... relief? Something? Was there a pang of regret? The girl could not speak even if she wanted to say something, it was getting hard for her to breathe. She wanted to run away but her legs had no strength.

The young man opened his eyes and looked into the water. "You may be right for someone else. You may be right for me, but I guess, not right now. Or maybe I am the one who isn't right for you, or maybe I am not just smart enough to know what I should do. And maybe there is no right person, but who can say for sure." The young man closed his eyes, suddenly very tired...


...The young man opened his eyes, again, and two years had passed. He was on the rock alone this time, and he wondered what his life would have been, had he said things differently, or had he decided differently. The young man got up to leave. It was time to go back home to his wife, to his family, to his new life.

***

The moral of the story is that sometimes there are no right or wrong answers. There are just decisions and consequences. What we make of those choices, how we choose to view the world, what we do thereafter, those are the things that make answers right or wrong, long after the fact.

We go through our lives having only partial answers to everything. We learn every day, but every day we find out how much we do not know. And we get paralyzed by indecision, by fear of the unknown.

But honestly, the decision to do is a lot easier to justify than the decision not to do.

-David