Godliness – goodchristianfiction

Mitzi sleeping — We can ALL be this relaxed. Read how.

I have been doing a much better job lately of living day-to-day. This approach to life, realizing that what I really have is only this moment, taking to heart Jesus’ admonition to take care of this day because each day has enough trouble of its own, is really a great leap forward for a compulsive worrier such as myself. It is a very freeing way to approach life when you don’t bog yourself down with the “what ifs” that plague the anxiety-ridden.

As God so often works, I happened to read a really great passage in C.S. Lewis’ Scewtape Letters this week that will help me live each moment in an even more Godly way. After all, it’s easy to live-in-the-moment and fall into the trap of living for the moment, plunging yourself solely into the pleasures and challenges of this life instead of contemplating the next one.

What C.S. Lewis proposes is that each person has three questions to ask of herself before doing anything:

Is it righteous?
Is it prudent?
Is it practical?

We need to be sure that we define these questions according to the Bible. The first word, righteous, means “acting in accord with divine or moral law; free from guilt or sin” according to Webster’s Dictionary. If we want the Bible’s definition, we need only turn to the Sermon on the Mount, starting in Matthew 5, to learn about this word from every angle. Jesus simplified righteousness the most when He summed up the law with two edicts: loving God first and most and loving and treating everyone else as we ourselves want to be loved and treated. So, when I ask myself, is this righteous, I know I have to begin my thinking in the realm of love that IS God.

Something that is prudent is “marked by wisdom or judiciousness” (Webster’s). We know from the Proverbs that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. We also know that we can only gain wisdom of God through daily study of His word, daily time with Him in prayer, and concsious knowledge on our part that we really don’t know anything at all when compared with God’s wisdom. So, is our action wise according to the dictates laid out by God, according to His goals for a Christian’s life?

Practical things are “manifested in action, not theoretical or ideal.” They are “capable of being put to use or account/ useful” (Webster’s). It can be so easy to get caught up in our own thoughts all the time, wondering or complaining about how things should be instead of taking care of how things are. But, practical actions are more likely to point outward, to think of others instead of just the self. It’s all very easy to say to ourselves that we love other people. It is another thing altogether to serve food in a soup kitchen or volunteer for a community group or bake dinner for the older neighbor who lives next door. Again, Jesus helped define what was practical during His ministry, often to the shock of the “more religious” Pharisees, who could not see the holiness of some of His actions because they could not see past their own rigidly-defined religion. For example, they did not understand how unclean things like utensils used to eat on the outside do not make a person unclean on the inside.

It’s often been said to count to ten before speaking when you are angry. I like this idea of taking time to ask myself three questions before I take an action or say something I may otherwise regret. I especially love the way that God works for the good the things that happen in our lives. Just as I am learning to live without worry, God gives me something positive to think about to make my “moment-living” even more productive from a Christian perspective. Thank you, Jesus!

Paul admonishes Timothy to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. I am no Timothy, but if I am trying to use my writing to share Christianity, then surely I should also take these pursuits to heart. It goes without saying that righteousness and godliness are challenges every day. However, I think one of my biggest challenges from this list is actually gentleness.
Why would I say that gentleness is the hardest pursuit? I believe it is because gentleness is the one admonition that truly requires us to remove all judgment, see things from others’ perspectives, and gain our best hope of leading someone out of the darkness and into the light.
In other of his writings, Paul admonishes to lead other’s gently, especially those who have turned away from God in the things that they do. He also warns to be careful not to fall into the same trap of evil as the one you are trying to turn back to God. Sin is so tempting because it is the easy way. Trying to make the right choices is much more challenging, which is why we must have Jesus in our lives in order to have a chance of doing what is right. The easiness of sin is also why being gentle when we are trying to instruct in ways that are opposed to sin is so important.
Of course, Paul makes it clear in other texts that there are times, once gentleness has been tried unsuccessfully, when a person must be handed over to the devil in the hopes of shocking that person into coming back to the light.
But this kind of heavy hand is not the purview of a writer of fiction. No, I should reflect a gentleness that expresses the faith, love, endurance, righteousness, and godliness of a strong walk with Christ.
Thankfully, my writing is something I can edit, ponder, and “perfect,” not like my conversation, which is often quick to judgment and often not gentle. So, like all readers of Timothy, I must strive every day to be gentle, not just when I am trying to write something. And that may just take the most endurance of all.