How Good is Good Enough?

Getting to spend every day with my sweet baby is perhaps the best gift I have ever been given.  I love being the one to play with her, read to her, and snuggle with her all day long.  Above all else, I really love just watching her.   The look of concentration on her little face, as she purses her lips together in a desperate attempt to make sense of the world around her, is almost more than my heart can bear.  From pulling on the window blinds, to figuring out her hands are in fact attached to her person, she has a lot of learning to do.  And learn we do. Most of my day is spent in a one way conversation that goes something like this: “yes, Mia, that’s Otis.  Otis is a puppy dog; puppy dogs go ruff, ruff, ruff.  Otis needs a bath because he is smelly.  Do you see that baby… that’s you… that is a mirror… look, there’s Mommy too.  Where’s the giraffe?  Do you see it… that’s a giraffe.  Giraffe’s go… ummm… I’m not actually sure what giraffe’s say, we’ll ask Daddy about that when he gets home.  Maybe one day we can see giraffe’s at the zoo.”  And while I love the curiosity, truth-be-told, the vast amount of things she needs to know can easily cast anxiety in my heart.  What if I tell her a puppy goes ruff, ruff, but her Daddy tells her puppies say woof, woof… what then?  We can probably cross the Ivy League schools off our college list.  When moments like this hit me I try to remember that while it is indeed important to know your animal sounds, and yes Harvard may seem important and all now, my real task is teaching Mia about eternal things because well, they last forever.  So, my baby girl what I want you to know most is that...

Being good doesn’t get you anywhere.

One of the best books I have ever read is a mere 92 pages long and no bigger than a large index card.  The content of Andy Stanley’s How Good is Good Enough?, strikes my heart every time.  I think the book hits so close to home because it addresses a question that so many people have and yet nobody is completely comfortable talking about….

Just how good do I have to be to get into heaven?

According to Stanley’s book, 90% of Americans would agree that there is a heaven.  Stanley goes on to note that a mere 30% of people surveyed believe hell is an actual place and none of those who believed in hell actually thought they were going there.  So, if we are all going to heaven, what instructions can I leave my little Mia to make sure she doesn’t miss the boat?  After all, this seems like a much more important topic to focus on than the animal noises I was concerned about earlier… eternity is a pretty long time. 

If I wanted Mia to be like most people, the answer seems pretty easy.  Most people subscribe to the view that good people go to heaven.  “The logic flows something like this: There is a good God who lives in a good place reserved for good people.”  (Stanley 10).  As long as I tell Mia to mind her manners now, she will be set for later.  “Likewise, most of the world goes to bed at night under the assumption that if they were to die in their sleep, they would find themselves standing at the pearly gates.  After all, good people go to heaven.  And just about everybody thinks they are good.” (Stanley 18). 

As a mom, I suppose this good people go logic seems fair enough.  In a few years won’t this align right along with what I will be teaching her?  "If you practice real hard and do good in try-outs maybe you’ll make the team.  Turn in your work and study hard and you will do good on the test".  And maybe, just maybe on a day when my Mom patience is at its least… “If you sit real still and do good in church we can go get ice cream afterwards.”  Good people deserve good things.

This theory, Stanley says, “coincides with the notion that there is a good God. If there is a good God, and if He dwells in a good place, then it makes sense that God would fill heaven with good people... A good god in a good place sounds like the ideal destination for good people.”  (Stanley 19) 

Thank goodness it’s so simple because otherwise a bunch of us would be in trouble, including my super sweet 8 month old, and how could she be anything but good?  Now that it’s settled if someone could just show me a check off list I can give Mia and while I’m out I’ll go ahead and make a copy for myself so I can get on this good thing. 

One of the things I learned while teaching was the importance of expectations.  How could I, in good conscience hold my students accountable for something if I had not first clearly explained what I expected?  I quickly figured out for instance, that telling my students to talk quietly, meant something totally different to shy, introverted Natalie than it did to I live in house of all boys where we get yelled at all day Rob.  Poor Rob could be hoarse from talking so loud, but because he wasn’t yelling like he did at home, Rob thought he was using an appropriate inside voice.  Sorry, Rob, if I can’t hear myself think your voice is too loud… at least to me.  When we conduct our class at your house we can talk about your expectations then.  Today my class equals my expectations.

Likewise when we talk about being good, what exactly are we saying?  Am I good when I help an old lady across the street?  What about when I pick up the kitchen before my spouse can ask me?  I thought I was being pretty good when I bought my friend who had a baby dessert, but I noticed our other friend brought her an entire meal… oops… guess I wasn’t quite good enough.  And while it’s out there, am I to tell Mia that she has to live up to her own personal good (whatever that means) or is she in some kind of contest with the next kid?  How do we know what the expectations are?  I hope she is good and all, but am I committing to try and raise the next Mother Teresa here?  That seems slightly unrealistic and at the very least super stressful. 

Ummm, hey, God… I could use some direction here.  “If good people go to heaven, a good God should have communicated that directly to us.  Instead, we have religious leaders of all shapes, sizes, and persuasions who claim that they know the formula.  The problem, of course, is that they all have a different formula.”  (Stanley 24).

Had I walked into my 7^th grade geography class on the first day and told everyone I would give them their grade for the class based on a final and to spend the next semester studying, only to immediately walk out and never teach again until the test, I would have been fired instantly.  “People need direction”, I would have been told, “you need to set expectations” the parents would rave, and I bet somewhere in the midst of the furious chaos someone would even throw out the idea that maybe I wasn’t such a good teacher after all.  And yet, so many of us seem to accept without thought this same basic formula as it applies to heaven and God. 

If you really sit down and think it over, the good people go theory just doesn’t really seem very good after all.

“…the good people go view has several hurdles to clear.  The first is that there is no universal consensus regarding what is right and what is wrong.  The second follows from the first.  Assume you somehow know in divinely certain terms what constitutes good.  Even if that were the case, you are still left with the quandary of how you are to be graded and where you stand at any given time.”  (Stanley 45).   No one is good all the time.  So it needs to be considered if you believe good people go to heaven, then “what percentage of your deeds do you think need to be allotted to the positive side of the balance sheet in order to secure a slot?” (Stanley 46). 

Considering I am just now getting my check-list of good deeds together at 30 years old, I am really hoping I simply don’t just run out of time.   Between being a preteen, high school student, and college kid I have a lot of not so good deeds that need to made up for.  Let’s not even talk about the selfishness that marriage can bring to light on a daily basis.  It seems like I have a lot of work to do.  “If God is good and good people go to heaven, shouldn’t God show up every generation or so and give us the updated version of what he expects?  Goodness 7.0.”  (Stanley 47). 

And while the thoughts above are enough to make me think twice about this good people go view, Stanley really gets my attention with his next statement…

“Perhaps the most emotionally perplexing problem with the good people go to heaven view is that it contradicts the teachings of Jesus Christ.”  (Stanley 49). 

Jesus said, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20

Jesus taught that forgiven people go to heaven, “and forgiveness is made possible by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.”  (Stanley 63). 

Christ bore the cross on Good Friday so that Mia and everyone else could have something that we don’t deserve, that no amount of goodness could ever get us… an eternity in heaven.  Because let’s be real…there is no way that I, as imperfect as I am, could ever do enough so-called good things to warrant hanging out with God for forever… even bringing my A game everyday all day is not going to cut it.  My A game just isn’t that good.  Or maybe it is… but how would I ever know?

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me.”  John 3:16.  

Stanley’s book, while small, addresses many other objections people commonly have when talking about Christianity, I really encourage you to get it- here. Heck, send me a message and I’ll get it for you… I really believe you may like what it has to say.  At the very least you owe it to yourself to be well informed so you can clearly explain to people why you do or not believe certain things.

While you are reading, I am going to be thankful that I do, in fact, have something concrete I can teach Mia about heaven.  As a parent, it overwhelms my heart to know that my sweet baby (who really is just a little sinner disguised under all those squeezable rolls) will not have spend her life walking around with some checklist hoping she is being good enough.  All that she has to do is freely accept a gift that has been given in Christ her savior, and I pray everyday that she does.  If you would like to do that find out how to accept that gift for yourself, you can do so by clicking here.

“The word gospel means “good news,” The good news is that good people don’t go to heaven- forgiven people do.  And if you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your savior, you are one of those forgiven people!” (Stanley 92).