READ: The ‘Good Girl’ Problem. PDF, EPUB online free reviews.

Me in Pink circa 1986-ish

I was a ‘good girl’. I never smoked, drank, slept around. I went to church pretty much every week. I went to youth group, even when it killed me to go. I helped out at Sunday School, Youth Groups and went to Bible Study. I prayed and read my Bible, I shared what I believed even when it meant that I looked like an idiot. I ticked every box and toed every line – not perfectly – but all in all I was a good girl.

Works Mentality

The issue of the ‘good girl’ is that we expect God to reward us for our good works. High five, sister, you’re a star! But my big lightbulb, forehead slap moment is that being a Christian is not about being a good person. It’s not about how much ‘good’ you do, how ‘good’ you look on the outside but your authentic relationship with God and his work THROUGH you!

“8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2: 8-10

God inspires us, puts people on our hearts, gives us the extra energy and ideas to get things done. It’s not that we’re awesome good people – it’s that He is good and he’s determined to show himself to our world, amongst other things, through us, the most broken, imperfect of people.

God Chooses the Worst People

Yep, he’s been doing it forever! Just open up your Bible and check out the worst types of people God chose to do incredible things…

Eve – temptress
Cain – murderer
Solomon – sex addict
Gideon – fearful and mistrusting of God
Noah – a drunk
Moses – nervous, speech impediment, murderer
Rahab – prostitute
David – murderer and had a pretty awful affair
Jonah – ran away from God
Matthew – a tax man (pretty bad guy in those days)
Saul/Paul – full-on persecutor of Christians transformed into a Christian legend

Let’s face it, there are no good Christians, no good human beings, really. So why do we obsess about getting everything right all the time when God isn’t primarily interested in our behaviour. Rather, he takes our mess, our poo and turns it into fertiliser – all the time! In fact, weirdly, he loves it when we’re at the end of ourselves, when we’re not perfect because that’s when he does his best work.

Fervent Prayer Fail

In all my striving to be that ‘good’ Christian, my heart has often been in the right place. There was a time I prayed with tears on many occasions for my daughter’s friend’s mum who had Cancer. I stepped out in faith (works), I prayed every day (striving), I begged and pleaded and believed and did all the ‘right’ Christian things and then she died. The results? Other than feeling complete devastation for this family, I felt really angry with God. How dare he not answer my noble prayer that I had prayed WITH TEARS! How could he not meet me out there on the front line of life? How dare she die when I had prayed so hard.

The thing I realised in the end that it was not my ‘work’ that mattered but my heart for these people, my faith in God’s goodness and his plan which all sounded so fluffy and naff in that moment. But before she died this woman met with my pastor and although I don’t know for sure, I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s now with Jesus. My plans and dreams for her didn’t work out but God had bigger fish to fry and who was I to tell him how to answer? It was so hard but in the end we are called to trust him, not him even when things don’t make sense. Incredibly, heartbreakingly difficult sometimes.

Free Gift

In all this ‘good girl’ stuff, I realised that we can’t earn eternity, that you don’t have to be good enough for God to love you. Jesus has already paid the price for our lives and that’s something I think we take for granted. We have freedom to live the way we want to or to live God’s way. The consequences of either can be devastating or liberating. When we fall down, God doesn’t walk away. He holds out his hand and draws us to himself, to his true, loving, gracious father’s heart. We are all his kids, whether we walk away or we stay close. He will never stop loving us or pursuing us. I am still learning not to strive or ‘work’ to gain God’s approval, love, prayer answers, but to trust in who he says he is and who I have experienced him to be. So, stop trying so hard to be ‘good’, just rest in the knowledge that he loves you, warts and all, spend time with him and the rest will flow naturally!