Bad Girl, Good Girl (Part 2 of 2)

Okay, so if you haven’t read Part One: Bad Boy, Good Boy? then go read it. Or this will make NO sense to you!

Yesterday I wrote how my mischevious son came to accept Jesus at a young age because the idea of sin and punishment made perfect sense to him. He understood the gift that Jesus had given him by taking the punishment in his place.

So, fast forward a few years… I overhear my now son trying to explain the same concept to his four-year-old sister, who was refusing to have anything to do with it. I distracted my budding young evangelist and told him that this was really more of Mom or Dad’s responsibility, but that we appreciated his efforts. “But, Mom!” he said, earnestly. “She won’t listen!”

Later, I found a quiet moment to sit down with her privately. We had the same discussion that her brother and I had years earlier. I was ready. I knew what to say this time. I explained about sin and bad choices. I told her the wonderful gift Jesus had given us by taking our punishment for us. I told her how simple it was to receive this precious gift.

She looked up at me with big blue eyes. “But, Mommy,” she said. “I never do anything wrong!”

I stumbled backwards in my mind. Of course she did things wrong. We all do things wrong. But as hard as I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a concrete example of something she’d done recently.

My daughter is far from perfect (except in my eyes), but one thing she has always been is obedient. She is so obedient that I occasionally fear for her future. Unlike her brother, she only had to go to timeout maybe once or twice. She was the perfect example of a “good girl.”

I had been much the same as a kid. I rarely got in trouble. I had older brothers who did all that for me. I saw how they were punished and I chose to avoid it. I understood God’s love the same way I understand my parent’s love. That was always clear to me. But the whole sin/punishment, grace and mercy stuff? That had to wait until I was older and braver and began to make my own stumbling mistakes.

I’ve always related to the story of the “rich young ruler” described in Matthew 19. The man had done everything right, kept all the commandments since he was young. But when he pressed Jesus on how he could assure himself a spot in heaven, Jesus answered him “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matt 19:21). The man goes away dejected and Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.

I don’t really think Jesus was talking about earthly riches here. I like how He said, “if you want to be perfect…” I think He was saying that if we don’t feel our need for Him, it makes it harder for us to accept Him. Those who are poor obviously feel need. Those who make lots of mistakes, feel need. But those who are obedient by nature sometimes have difficulty understanding this need. Why do we need forgiveness if we aren’t all that bad in comparison to others?

The truth is, we are bad in comparison to perfection. God doesn’t distinguish between big whopper sins like murder, robbery or cheating on your spouse and the little things like refusing to help someone you see in need. We are all sinful. It doesn’t matter who we compare ourselves with, we still fall short of what God intended for us. But it is harder for some of us, the “good girls/boys” to understand that.

A person suffering from a simple sinus infection feels terrible and goes to the doctor for help. Another person may have an insidious cancer growing deep within and not know until it is too advanced to treat. This is why my five year old son recognized his need for forgiveness at such a young age, but my daughter, the good girl, didn’t understand. Sometimes our sin nature is so far buried that it takes time for us to discover it.

Thankfully, Jesus is patient with us. When we finally recognize that need, He is ready to swoop in and pick us up in His strong arms. Our sin is never so “far advanced” that He cannot remove it. Whether a person is five or 105, it doesn’t matter. It’s always the right time. So whether we are “bad” or “good” or somewhere in between, after we’ve accepted what Jesus has done for us, we are all “perfect” in our Father’s eyes. There is no greater gift than that.