Goodometer

Brrrrrrrr!!! It’s been cold! I skipped my morning walk a few days last week because it was just too chilly. Okay, the temperatures were in the low forties. I live in Florida where we consider that frigid, but you might live in International Falls where it would be a great day for a picnic. Words like cold and hot are relative and open to disagreement, whereas 32 degrees is the same no matter who you are or where you live.

What about words like good and evil? Can they be measured? Can I hook myself up to a goodometer and get a score on that? I had to face some hard truths on my first day back to walking (we hit 50 degrees). Passing a neighbor of a different ethnicity, I gave an especially cheery greeting. Why? Was I trying to prove something? Did I want to demonstrate that, unlike the lesser members of my race, I am prejudice-free? Maybe. I’m not sure. There are many things I don’t do, like murder, steal, or use bad language. Does that make me good, or at least pretty good?

What I’ve learned is that good isn’t arbitrary like hot or cold. It has a standard, and that is God. He is the goodometer I must use to measure my goodness. I’ve also learned that true goodness is not graded on a curve where A=Godlike, B=Better than most, and C=Needs improvement. Goodness is pass or fail, and we have all failed. Like the prophet Isaiah wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6) I’m sure glad that verse has a next line: “And the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” When God checks the goodometer to test if I have passed or failed, he doesn’t hook it up to me. He hooks it up to Jesus.