Exploiting Goodness

READ: Nehemiah 9

For many years you were patient with them. . . .Yet they paid no attention.


Before I taught my first college class, a seasoned teacher gave me this advice: “Make students think you’re as mean as a snarling dog for the first month. That way they’ll appreciate it more when you finally smile.”

Instead of following his suggestion, I told my freshmen English students that I wanted to make class enjoyable. I wanted them to love language and writing as much as I did. To accomplish that, I thought I had to make class fun.

But fun for them turned into work for me.

They mistook kindness for weakness, mercy for leniency, and patience for permissiveness. They became disrespectful, disobedient, and delinquent. I became angry, frustrated, and short-tempered.

One day after a failed attempt to get them to be quiet, I blurted, “You make me feel like God.”

My presumptuous statement got their attention.

“You make me feel like God,” I said, “because everything that I intend for your good you use against me. I don’t want to be angry or harsh. But if that’s what it takes for you to learn, that’s what I’ll be.”

My students weren’t the first to exploit goodness for selfish purposes. The Bible has many stories, songs, and prayers about God’s similar experiences with His people. The psalm written by Asaph (Psalm 78) and the prayer of confession recorded by Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9) both affirm that goodness starts with God’s care and provision, but it is interrupted repeatedly by human failure and unfaithfulness.

Lest we judge the Israelites too harshly, however, the human condition didn’t improve even after Jesus personally demonstrated the way to live. To Christians living in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote: “Do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

Sometimes we conclude that God’s goodness to us in such things as wealth and opportunity is proof of our own goodness. But that’s a dangerous and wrong assumption. As the apostle said, God’s goodness ought to lead us to repentance—not to pride. —Julie Ackerman Link

REFLECTION

• What good things am I taking for granted?
• Does the goodness of God and others make me grateful or greedy? Humble or arrogant? Kind or ruthless? Patient or impatient? Responsible or irresponsible? Obedient or disobedient? Generous or selfish? Loving or self-centered?

Goodness begins and ends with God.

campus journal