Made to Be Good

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

When God made the world, its working order, and its inhabitants, God said, “It is good.” Likewise, when God made man and woman, God also called them “good.” “It is good,” God said. Why the word “good”? Why not “perfect”? Wasn’t it perfect? …Or was God holding back?

But God’s own self cannot be expressed in varying degrees of “goodness” because God’s own self is the embodiment of Goodness. I’m not “Shannon Baker-er” than anyone else; I cannot be a superlative of the thing which I simply am, right? To call something or someone “perfect” is to either compare them to a former version of themselves, or to compare them against someone else entirely. No one can be called “perfect” without having, even subconsciously, some shadow of another being in the background, serving as a substandard by which to elevate the first being in question. We say God is “perfect,” because we know we are not. Would Adam and Eve have recognized God as “Perfect”? Or would they have instead recognized God as “Good”—the embodiment and Source of who they were created to be? Which, again, was distinctly “GOOD”—completely outside of the realm of “Perfection,” because there was no other realm. Goodness alone was there.

Maybe I’m just not scholarly enough by theological standards to understand the true reason why the Bible says, “It is good” and not “It is perfect.” But when I consider the quote above from the book East of Eden, I see God’s statement with something that *feels like* greater clarity: Maybe God didn’t say “it is perfect” because that was never His intention in the first place, to compare us to Himself. In the beginning, in the untainted Garden, there was no broken standard by which to elevate anything as “better” or “more perfect” than another. Everything could simply be good, without competition and without the shadow of sin. Then, the apple. Suddenly, with the entrance of sin, there were comparisons. There was good and bad—and a knowledge of both. We can do good; we can do bad. But if God called us “good,” and His Word is Truth, and enduring, and does not go back to Him empty (Is. 55), then good we are, regardless of what we do. To not be determined by our actions or our thoughts or our responses, to know that perfection is not expected, but that the One who is ultimately Good calls us into the fullness of Himself without comparison or comparative expectation…should be wildly, wildly freeing.

“Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Where did we get off trying to fight our way back into the Garden like we’re storming a castle (…when the drawbridge is already down)? If the Garden is the peaceful Presence of God, why is there so much striving to get there? (I blame the American education system, but that’s a beast for another day 😉.)

Let me put it another way:

“Put on the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith…when evil comes.” (Parts of the latter half of Eph. 6, summarized…)

Why do so many of us read that^, put on the armor, and then wear it straight into the throne room of God? I will be pure, God, I will be strong, God, I will push forward, God…But Scripture says, unless I’m misinterpreting, that this protection is meant for the “day of evil.” It’s meant for the broken world we live in—necessary to stand our ground when the ground itself is shaking. Very important, don’t misunderstand me, and we must run the race.

…But the armor is not meant for the Garden.

The Garden is Peace. The Garden is Rest. The Garden is Good. Jesus has made it so, again. When we are there, we wear nothing, because we are in the fullness of Goodness and there is no need for protection. We can’t wear anything in the Garden. We can’t wear our costumes or our armor (most of us prefer one or another, or some sick combination of both). We must enter naked. We are given a robe. We can’t put it on over something else, or the lightness—the significance of what was given to us—is reduced. And the Garden is authentic because the Truth alone will set us free.

So when it comes to sitting in the Garden, in the Presence of God, the best thing you can be is you, without the armor. Without your defenses, as good as they are against the world. With no pretense or protection, unstained by the competition and comparison we see “out there,” we allow God to remind us, “Hey, you. You are GOOD.”

We come to the Garden, we come to the throne room. We take off our armor, we take off our shoes. We bring only ourselves, no more and no less. We are made good by God, called good by God, and commissioned for good by God. We put on our armor; we go back out into the world. We stand firm. We know that we are loved, that this Love covers every blemish, every scrape, every poor action, every destructive thought, every hurt—whether it is self- or outwardly inflicted. Because even without the armor, the Garden is here, in us, for us. Jesus made it so. The fruit was eaten from a tree, and sin and death came; Goodness died on a tree, and sin and death flee. And we are left with the Garden. It is finished. It is finished. It is finished.

We do not have to be perfect, because we were made to be good.