Doing Good!

Every now and then, someone will ask me, “Lisa, how are you doing?” My reply is “I’m doing good!”

Yes, I know that the grammatically correct response is “I’m doing well”- if you are talking about health. But that’s not what I’m talking about, though it may appear so. I say it that way because I want to secretly remind myself that I am supposed to “do good”, to not do harm. I am supposed to be God’s ambassador.

Good deeds, however, are not the complete picture.

Have you ever heard of King Josiah?

He was the boy who became King of Judah at the age of eight, after his father was assassinated. He did enormous good. Josiah wiped out all signs of idol worship. When the Book of the Law was found in the temple, he ordered that it be followed. He reinstituted Passover. He did marvelous things for God. He was sincere. He was ruthless in obedience to the Law. He found rules and he followed them.

Except that he forgot to talk to God about it. He was so busy doing that he neglected the One for whom he was doing. He ended up missing the point. Like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Busy, busy, busy and scrupulously clean on the outside, but hollow.

Like you. Like me.

Isn’t that what we tend to do? We busy ourselves with Christian work, doing good for our King. We’re sincere! We write our hearts out for Jesus. We spend time reading each other’s blogs. But did we pray first? Did we have our quiet time first? Did God really get put first this morning? Not just the talking about Him, but the sitting with Him.

Faith without deeds is dead, yes. But I think deeds can be empty, too.

I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to be a “human doing” instead of a “human being”. And right now, I’m getting pretty convicted. I’m going to post this and go sit, go be at my King’s feet for awhile and make sure I’ve consulted Him. His battle plan is the one I need to be following.